Stages of Grief
by veivei
Summary: Sequel to Drown in Ashes. Half a year later, Izaya returns. Shizaya. Shikizaya.
1. Denial 1

Sakura trees were blooming again. It brought back memories as Izaya moved through the city, its unfamiliarity setting him on edge even after half a year.

He had already been back to Tokyo because the business there had been too enticing to pass up but still retreated back here after it'd been done.

It was easier to forget here but the cherry blossom trees weren't helping in that regard. If he inadvertently remembered anything, he consciously chose to concentrate on memories of Mikado. With time, their encounters in the afterlife took on an ethereal quality in his mind as if they hadn't actually happened at all and as if the Mikado he'd met there had been just a figment of his own imagination.

He might have believed that to have been the case, too, except Celty had met him as well. Either way, Mikado was dead, and hopefully satisfied with where he'd ended up on the other side.

Izaya doubted they were going to meet ever again not only because it was sappy nonsense he was not prone to believe in but also because the Dullahan had told him there had been only one possible place for him to go if he'd killed someone and the memory of the dark bottomless pit was still strangely clear in his mind. Apparently that was exactly where he was headed when he died after having killed Kururi.

If he was able to die irrevocably at all.

It seemed the curse should have been over with Mikado being gone now but that was not a given and there was only one surefire way to find out and that was to actually get killed, just like Celty had told him. In this way he was back to the uncertainty about what happened after death that was the default human condition and he was glad for that, even though there had been a time when mortality had seemed to him to be a problem to be solved. Messing around with these matters was at the root of his ensuing misery and he regretted it now. Humanity, including his own, was to be cherished or else one ended up a monster like Shizuo.

The name itself made him wince.

The memories that were dragged out of him throughout the ordeal half a year ago were something he didn't need at all.

He could now remember how he'd found out about Shizuo's crush from Shinra back in high school and how he'd thought it had been funny but he could have been up for some fooling around. Shizuo had got it all wrong though.

To think that experience that he had assumed to have shaken off had wiped out junks of his memory and hurt him right through the center of his being. If only he remembered it as it had been, he might have never instigated the relationship with Shizuo again. Whom was he kidding though when he thought he'd had any control over it all happening. He had just been used in his lowest moment and even running away was just admitting another defeat.

But so be it, Shizuo was not worthy of him plotting some grand revenge, making a fool of himself like the kids who were pursuing him. If he ever got bothersome, Izaya had had the presence of mind to collect some evidence against him back then that could be used at any moment. And for now the rumors had to suffice. Shizuo must have certainly not been happy with the word on the streets being that he had beaten up dozens of Blue Squares members doing Izaya's bidding.

He headed back because his thoughts were going in the wrong direction anyway.

"Orihara-kun, where have you been?" The man smoking a cigarette in his bed asked when Izaya entered the bedroom, having removed his coat but not his gloves.

"Taking a walk."

"Isn't walking painful for you, though? Why would you do it for no reason?"

"Because I enjoy it, I guess."

"Are you a masochist? You should have let me know." The predatory smile on the yakuza's face sent a shiver down Izaya's spine.

"I'll think about that, Shiki-san."

"Think about moving back." Shiki suggested, getting out of bed and starting to get dressed, putting the dress shirt on over the tattoos. "Because travelling that far for you gets old fast."

"I thought I made it worth your while." Izaya smiled.

"Well, Orihara-kun, you've grown on me over the years but you're certainly not irreplaceable. Not as a plaything and not even as an informant. You can have your moment of weakness after your sisters died but one day we will run out of patience."

"I understand."

"But you're still hiding here." Shiki pointed out.

"I can't fight anymore and I have enemies back there."

"I know. But I can take care of that."

* * *

"Didn't you once imagine this day differently, Anri-senpai?" Aoba asked Anri on the way home on the day of her high school graduation. "How you were going to graduate with Mikado-senpai and Kida-senpai…"

"Yes." She admitted.

"And then the day comes and they're both gone and even you graduating on time is unusual after you've spent so much of the school year in a coma. Well, nothing worked out like it should but at least I'm still around." He pointed out with a smile.

Anri accepted him talking to her at school and walking her home on most days but contrary to what the rumors said they were not a couple, though not for lack of trying on his part.

"Will you continue to hang out with me now that you've graduated, outside of school, Anri-senpai?" Aoba asked. "That would be like a date and I could start calling you Anri-chan."

There was a bond of sorts between them ever since she'd cut him and then visited him at the hospital for weeks while he'd been unconscious but she didn't trust him and she would have never considered him her friend. She still remembered Mikado's warning and her insight into his mind likewise left her unimpressed.

"I'm not sure if we're going to be seeing each other again, Aoba-kun." She answered politely.

"That's cruel." He sighed.

His phone vibrated in his pocket.

"I have somewhere to be." He said after checking it. "If you ever change your mind, Anri-senpai, you know how to find me."

His eyes shone red for the briefest of moments. Then he left her side.

* * *

"It would have been our graduation now too, right, Saki-chan?" Kida mused, noting all the senior students in formal clothes out on the streets.

"Does that make you upset?" She asked softly, squeezing his hand while they walked.

"Well, it would have been nice to stay in school up to this point and have nothing else to worry about." He shrugged. "Other than that I don't care. Mikado's dead, Anri- chan doesn't want to see me, so even if I graduated now, there would have been no one to share it with. Besides you, of course."

Saki was used to being an afterthought. Even though after all this time she really shouldn't have been.

"We should make this day special even though we're not graduating today, Masaomi." She said. "Make it the beginning of a new stage in our lives all the same."

"What do you mean?" Kida asked, growing pensive. He already suspected what she meant because she had been pestering him about it for a long time already.

"You could promise me today that you wouldn't try to go after Izaya again." She stopped walking and said solemnly.

"I already made a promise, Saki-chan. To Mikado, right before his death, that I would kill him."

"And you already tried to do that. You cut his hand. You took his knife. You know that it was important to him. He'll never forget that. You don't have to try to kill him anymore."

"Saki-chan, are you saying this for my sake or for his?"

"You know I'm not like that anymore." She sounded offended.

"Sometimes, I have my doubts."

"You've already lost Anri-chan over this stupid revenge, Masaomi. Do you want to lose me, too?" She was now growing angry. That rarely happened and he didn't like where it was going. "And what are your chances? The rumor is he may be back again, if it's even true, but he's protected by the yakuza now. And Heiwajima Shizuo wrecked Blue Squares when they targeted him last year. Not to mention he chased you away. Izaya may be weak now but I'm afraid he has friends in all the right places."

"Quit with the admiration. You could have stayed his pawn if that was what you wanted." Kida blurted out without thinking. "Maybe now that you're older you could have even become something more than that."

"I'm just pointing out the facts, Masaomi." She said calmly. "There's no need to say all these hurtful things. I only want you to promise me you won't do anything stupid again."

"The only thing I can promise you is that it won't be stupid this time around. And it will work."


	2. Denial 2

Ten years ago he was the right hand man of the leader of the junior division of his branch. Considering he played it pretty safe, it wasn't a bad position to attain at the time. It wasn't the big business yakuza though. What they occupied themselves with was mostly protection and surveillance of businesses in their turf and pushing drugs on the streets. Of course, a fair share of fights with rival organizations were taking place, too. Flashy tracksuits were the regular attire, which was somewhat foolish, considering anyone who wore them could be identified as an yakuza from a mile away. Shiki opted for an impeccable suit even back then, but somehow it wasn't likely to mistake him for a young salaryman either.

"This is the kind of deal that will make us or break us." The leader spoke up. "All of us should feel honored being given a responsible task like that."

Everyone in the division was in the room, listening intently. Shiki stood by the leader's side, observing the way he talked. One day he was going to replace that man. He wanted to be ready then.

The deal they were supposed to take care of exceeded what they did on a normal day. For one, it included welcoming a foreign delegation in the country and on top of that it was about illegal arms trade. It made Shiki wonder why rookies like them were allowed to supervise such a transaction at all. Most likely the risks involved were huge if some junior division members were all the organization was ready to put at stake.

"Everything's ready." The leader said to him after the official part of the division meeting was over. "But we still need a translator. Since these Russian guys don't speak Japanese. Do you know of anyone?"

Shiki shrugged.

"Too bad. Because I'd like you to find someone. Obviously, you only have the time until tomorrow. I'd prefer a whore or maybe an exchange student. Someone who won't talk and if she tries, we can get rid of her with no problems, if you know what I mean."

"I'll do my best." Shiki assured the leader politely even though back then a request like that didn't make him think of anyone.

He immersed himself in the dark undercurrent of the city with a few minions by his side for effect, asking around. He thought about a gaijin whore or a girl from a hostess bar who happened to be Russian at first but he realized such a person might not speak good enough Japanese. This wasn't an easy request for him to fulfill and he figured the difficulties they had with sorting out basics like that were the exact reason why the junior division was never taking care of anything serious.

"Now that you mention it, there is someone who might do this for you." A bartender at one of the shady clubs paying the branch a hefty sum each month for the so called protection said.

Shiki didn't accept his free drink, making one of his companions drink it instead. Otherwise, cruising through businesses like that, he would have been past his tenth drink by now.

"She's a feisty little thing, though. I mean: a bit on the unreasonable side. She may want lots of money. Or she may not want money at all."

"Is it some Russian girl?"

"No, but it seems she's spent some time in Russia. Actually, she walked up to me one time and said that if someone who couldn't hire a regular translator was looking for one, she was up for the job. It seems she speaks more European languages, too."

"You know... I think one of you may be bluffing. You or her." Shiki suggested, lighting up a cigarette. He wasn't in the mood for losing time.

"Of course, I couldn't check all those claims." The bartender's voice turned apologetic. "But I'd take the chance. She seems to be a pretty unusual person, somehow. It's just a feeling. I'd give it a try if I were you. I'll give you her phone number free of charge, so you can be sure of my good will." He took a notepad out from his pocket. "She said it was ok to call in the afternoons. Here you are." A piece of paper with a copied phone number was pushed Shiki's way.

* * *

Shiki decided to wait for the girl in the parking lot of the club where he'd first heard about her. More people reaffirmed what the bartender had said but additional information was sparse. He didn't exactly expect problems, what with the backup that was surrounding him, but he was afraid she was going to turn out to be a demented used-up whore who liked spreading false rumors about herself, thus leading to a great loss of time on his part.

"Hey, should I have brought some friends to entertain you all?"

Her voice and her words were beyond annoying, just like what he'd expected.

Looking up from fiddling with his cigarettes, he was astonished by her looks though. It was a teenager of slight build, her long skinny legs exposed by an indecently short vinyl skirt. The white fur fringed jacket she wore had its hood pulled up and casting a shadow over her face in the badly lit parking lot.

Shiki had always wondered whether it was some female version of balls or rather good old stupidity that made girls like her approach a bunch of yakuza in a secluded location with campy pick up lines and no trace of fear.

"The hood. Off." He spoke up in an indifferent voice.

He noted the twin silver rings on her index fingers when she reached up to act on his request. The amount of makeup caked over her face made her look like a whore even though it wasn't able to cover up her young age completely thus making her the least bit appealing. The platinum blond hair was obviously not her natural color.

"Is it true you speak Russian?" Shiki cut straight to the point.

"I do indeed. Would you like a demonstration?"

"Here, translate this." He took a piece of paper out of his jacket pocket and handed it to one of his companions who passed it over to the girl.

"The Moscow Metro. Do you want me to read all of this to you aloud now?" She asked, mildly amused.

He stopped her after a few phrases that seemed accurate with the translation he had.

"What's your name?"

"Kanra-chan." She replied merrily. "Nineteen years old, a girl of many talents."

"That's not your real name." Shiki pointed out.

"Girls like me don't have real names."

"This is a serious deal." He stressed out. "We're from the yakuza. There's an important meeting we need a translator for. Can you behave? And stay silent afterwards?"

"If the money is good, I can do whatever you want."

"It's not so great, unfortunately. We're only the junior division." Shiki shrugged. "But I bet you enjoy being alive and using that pretty face of yours to make money and wouldn't want to get damaged somehow..."

He motioned for one of his people to get a hold of the girl. She struggled half-heartedly as her arms were held behind her back, swaying on her high heels.

"You'll go with us now."

The eyes that looked up at him looked strangely calm and daring, amusement still lighting them up. In the weak light of street lamps, they were shining red.

* * *

"I have a little whore who speaks Russian for some reason. There's something fishy about her, though. But she was the best I could find in such a short amount of time." Shiki spoke into his phone.

"It'd be your responsibility for whoever you bring in not to turn out to be a spy. In the worst case, you can kill her after the deal is done. Is she at your place?"

"I'm spending the night at the office."

"Fine enough. Have fun, Shiki. Just not too much of it. We want her to be able to do her job tomorrow. The meeting is at 5 AM at the docks. Don't forget your kevlar and your bullets."

The call ended with that. Shiki pocketed his phone and headed to the dirty little kitchen smelling of gunpowder as everyone's favorite place for weapon cleaning, retrieved a glass and filled it up with tap water before walking back to the room where the girl was held, her hands and feet bound together. He'd dismissed the rest of the boys upon arriving at the office - their front was a fireworks-making company - not letting the horny bastards damage the translator finding which had taken so much of his time.

He poured the water down her lips without saying a word. Her cherry lipstick was smeared all over the lower half of her face and her mascara was likewise ruined. That made her look even younger and somehow more appealing.

"How old are you really?" He asked off-handedly.

"Seventeen. You?"

"I don't see how that's any of your concern." He lit up a cigarette. It was already past midnight. Not that much time left to 4 AM when they would have to leave to reach the docks on time. He needed to remember to drag the girl to the bathroom before that so she could make herself look presentable.

"I was just trying to be friendly." She said with a small smile.

"I think you don't understand your situation. One wrong move and I'll kill you tomorrow. This is not a game."

"The moral standards in the yakuza are getting so bad lately." She sighed dramatically. "I thought your honor prevented you from slaughtering katagi. And a girl at that. I came to you myself expecting an honest deal with a serious organization but it seems what I've actually encountered are common thugs with guns in their pockets."

Shiki's brow twitched. Was this girl insane, he wondered?

"I'm still thrilled to see what business you have with the Russians though. For my own enjoyment." She added quickly seeing him tense up. "I'm just a curious little girl. Hey!" She protested when he started dragging her somewhere, her metal heel tops scratching the floor with a loud jarring sound.

He pushed her face and her bound hands into the sink at the badly lit bathroom stinking of piss and opened the tap. She got his hint and started washing her face with her bound hands the best she could.

The wig came off when he tried to drag her back up by her hair to have a look at her face, revealing the short black hair underneath. He dropped it to the floor carelessly, forcing her to look into the cracked mirror.

Shiki couldn't stop his eyes from widening in the mirror upon realizing what he was holding in his grasp wasn't a high-school age girl but a middle-school age boy.

"What is the meaning of this disguise?" He growled into his ear and not getting an answer dragged him back to the room and pushed him down to the floor.

He threw the contents of the small purse covered in white fur the boy had been clutching previously out to the floor. There was a switchblade and a small stun gun among the various make-up utensils that spilled around. He looked through the small pink wallet. The student ID was slipped in inconspicuously among some crumpled banknotes and used up train tickets.

Orihara Izaya. Fifteen years old. That was the only person whom he could hope to bring in as a translator to the meeting of the yakuza and the Russian mafia in the morning, considering a mere three hours were left.

"You wouldn't have even considered me otherwise." Izaya answered his earlier question in a tad bit lower voice than the one he'd been using previously. "Untie me now. I can redo my make-up and nobody will realize your mistake."

* * *

Shiki couldn't help but be astonished. Why did a fifteen year old want to associate himself with the yakuza so much as to go to such absurd lengths? It was a distinct possibility he was paid by someone to do this though doing any kind of business with middle-schoolers was pretty rare as far as he knew.

His act was well-practiced, too and must have lasted for months for him to get to be known as a girl at the various clubs and bars, so it couldn't have been really meant just for them. Not to mention the claim about knowing various European languages this boy had made offering his services as an underground translator. Shiki could understand an adult whore might have worked with foreigners or even have been an exchange student previously but where could a teenager learn such things? Especially one that seemed to need to make money with sucking dicks dressed in drag.

Nothing about this boy made sense and Shiki would have preferred to kick him out of this place and let him disappear from his life forever. Expect he couldn't, not until next morning at least.

Shiki left the room, followed by Izaya's curious glance. He came back awhile later, carrying some crumpled clothes someone had left behind. He dropped them in front of the boy, took the switchblade and the stun gun well out of his reach and untied his hands.

"Put that on. This is a serious meeting."

He wasn't going to risk setting anyone on edge with bringing a boy dressed in drag. No matter how believable it might have looked to him in the dimly lit parking lot.

"I don't really look serious though." Izaya informed him, looking up at him with pretty red eyes. Without the makeup on, he had a look akin to a porcelain doll.

"I'm not interested in what you think." Shiki growled. "And what you have to say. So shut up and get fucking transparent unless you want to get on my bad side."

That was it for calm and collected as was befitting of a yakuza on his road to greatness, Shiki thought, lighting up a cigarette to calm himself down. The junior division with its poor accommodations and random idiots taken in right from the street gangs was the only place in the yakuza where nonsense like that could happen, though. That was part of the reason why he wanted to advance to the regular forces as soon as possible.

Izaya massaged his abused wrists thoughtfully before sliding his fur fringed jacket off his shoulders. He took off the tight red shirt and the padded bra in a moderate size filled up with silicon pads and reached down for the tiny skirt's zipper.

"Put the shirt on first." Shiki spoke up. "I want you to change, not to undress."

The black button down shirt was several sizes too big, covering Izaya's body almost down to his knees. He pulled off the ridiculous high heeled shoes and stood up to slide the skirt off from under the shirt. Small lacy black panties fell to the floor next.

Izaya pulled the jeans up and tightened their belt around his waist as much as it would go to keep them in place. The toes of his bare feet curled on the cold floor.

He bent down to pick his girl clothes up, the loose pants sliding precariously down his waist, revealing that he had no underwear underneath.

Shiki left the room rather abruptly.

Izaya smiled knowingly before walking up to the table where his switchblade was left and putting it in his pocket.

* * *

"You've got to be kidding me, Shiki. This is our translator?" The division leader asked incredulously having gotten into the passenger seat of the car they'd come in.

It was an older model of a pretty beaten up luxury Mercedes, used up by the higher-ups, chewed up by the regular division, shot at one too many times for the bulletproof metal plates to hold on, with upholstery ripped out by bullets, and graciously given out to the junior division in the end.

"I thought when you said you've got a little whore you meant a barely legal girl not this straight-up jailbait. What happened to his face?"

The side of Izaya's face was badly swollen and red. The injury looked fresh. His lip was split open but the cut had been cleaned up neatly.

"How am I supposed to know?" Shiki shrugged.

"Does he really speak Russian?"

"He does. I checked. I have his name, address, school. I bet he'll be a good boy."

Another yakuza knocked on the black tinted side window. Shiki pulled it down.

"I have what you asked for, Shiki. It's so lame to steal one's little brother's shoes though. I feel rather pathetic."

A pair of beaten up sneakers was put into Shiki's hands through the half-opened car window.

"Thanks."

The shoes were dropped in Izaya's lap.

"How come you've intercepted this kid shoeless?"

"I didn't like his taste in clothes. Shall we go?" Shiki asked, smartening the bulletproof vest under his jacket.

Having arrived at their destination, Shiki dragged Izaya out of the car and held onto his elbow to make sure he wouldn't try running away.

"Won't I get any insight into what's going to take place here?" Izaya spoke up.

"We have a business meeting with the Russian mafia. Arms dealers." The leader explained vaguely for the sake of the kid knowing what was going on. "Act reasonable or someone will shoot you."

Shiki didn't like the contemplative smile on Izaya's face one bit. As the door of the warehouse slid open in front of them, revealing the dimly lit interior filled with white men carrying machine guns the sinking feeling in his stomach only got worse.

They were past the initial pleasantries and introductions with no problems. The Russians had supposedly praised the kid's mastery of their language and he was acting well. Actually, Shiki wouldn't have imagined any fifteen year old could act this mature and collected in a room full of armed men eying the other side suspiciously. It took some serious guts, especially when you happened to be the only person around without a loaded gun on you.

Shiki was aware the time spent chatting was put to good use by everyone inside the warehouse to study its layout and locate possible escape routes. The crates of firearms laid in the center of the room. The suitcase filled with dollar bills was in his boss's hand.

Shiki caught Izaya's eyes flickering in its direction as well but he didn't think much about it at the time.

The boss of the Russians, a very big bald man started talking in Russian, looking at them, not at Izaya, even though his words were perfect gibberish to them.

"He wants to talk with your boss one on one." Izaya said.

His childish voice sounded jarring in these surroundings. Shiki's hold on his elbow tightened. That made it clear to the leader he wasn't going to let Izaya go so all three of them followed the Russians' boss to the corner of the room. Shiki's hand practically hovered over his holster. He put Izaya in front of him to cover that up. He didn't like this maneuver of the Russian man one bit.

The division's leader recited the terms of the deal in Japanese. Izaya's lengthy statement in Russian followed. The Russian man interrupted him once or twice and asked some additional questions Izaya didn't translate. Shiki was going to reprimand him.

"He will shoot your boss. Right now." Izaya's words, spoken softly in a flat voice made him grasp the handle of his gun.

The kid might have been lying.

Expect a dozen shots resounded inside the warehouse all at once in a hellish cacophony right then. Shiki pulled the gun out. He could see blood oozing out of his boss's stomach with the corner of his eye before attempting to point his gun at the Russian's head and realizing his neck was as far as he could reach with his height. He pulled the trigger, once, his eyes flickered to the Russian's gun's barrel inevitably moving in his direction, and started firing repeatedly, until his gun was out of bullets. Blood spurt out of the man's neck, indicating he grazed the carotid artery, and landed all over him.

The massive body fell down to the floor at his feet.

He was aware the Russians have probably decimated all his companions by then. The suitcase with their money though should have been... Except it wasn't at his side.

A small hand pulled on his sleeve before the fire of the machine guns could turn his way. The kid was really fast, skimming among the shelves in that part of the warehouse towards an emergency exit. The suitcase filled with dollars was in his hand. It seemed there was a moment of confusion among the other occupants of the room because no shots were fired their way.

Shiki couldn't wrap his mind around what had just happened. The door fell down after a well-placed kick. He could hear elevated voices from behind him. All of them were speaking Russian.

"You have the keys, right?" The boy whispered to him when they got out, motioning to the Mercedes parked in front of the building with a move of his head.

Shiki reloaded his gun.

"I saved your life just now." Izaya pointed out before breaking into a run towards the car.

They reached the junior division's Mercedes and left before any of the Russians so much as got out of the warehouse.

The kid was laughing in the passenger seat so hard tears were shining in the corners of his eyes.

It was then that Shiki realized what he had wasn't mere guts, it was full-blown insanity.

Shiki wiped the blood, not his own, off his face with the corner of his sleeve at the next red lights. Nobody seemed to be following them.

"The Russians set you up and killed everyone but you." The boy spoke up in a voice breathless from laughter. "And yet you escaped unscathed and managed to retrieve the division's money. Cheers to you becoming the new boss, I guess."

"Get out."

Shiki pulled the suitcase out of Izaya's arms forcefully and unlocked the car door. The street light changed to yellow.

Izaya looked hurt.

"You realize everything went just like I'd planned?" He said, his eyes full of mirth. "I could have arranged your death well enough."

"Get out while I'm still willing to let you go without a bullet in your head." Shiki growled.

Several horns resounded from behind their car.

"Fine enough." Izaya smiled up at him. "I'd like my student ID back." Shiki threw it in his lap. "And you still owe me, Shiki-san. I'll be back to collect that debt." He said before getting out of the car.

Shiki drove back to the junior division's office in the most round-about way he could think of and once inside the building headed right to the bathroom to dispose of his wet underwear before arranging a meeting with the branch's boss.

A pile of girl clothing and spilled contents of a purse were still lying on the floor. He threw everything into the garbage.

He was advanced to a member of the regular division the following day.

* * *

"The incident with the Russians last year." The old man puffed out the smoke from his cigarette. It was some fancy brand that smelled of cinnamon. "That's what I want to talk to you about. Since we've investigated and also managed to renew our business ties with the mafia and get to know what they think about it and the outcome isn't exactly favorable for you."

Shiki was standing a respectable distance away from the sitting man, his head bowed down.

He'd half-expected such a turn of events throughout last year.

"The Russians deny having set this incident up to steal our money. Of course, we don't believe mere claims. But indeed there were other possibilities we should think of as well. It may seem you coming back to the division's quarters with the money you'd taken hold of proved your loyalty. But maybe it wasn't about the money in the first place. Maybe you held some grudge against the junior division or its boss and arranged this incident to get rid of them. After all, you've brought in the translator, the only person who fully understood what was going on. It was a girl, wasn't it? A girl named Kanra. And yet there was not a single female body found at the scene. And we couldn't find her alive either by retracing the steps you took with your people the day before the incident. Have you killed her after she'd served her purpose? Or are you merely hiding her somewhere?"

"I haven't staged this incident, oyabun."

"Then who did?" The cigarette was smashed in the ash tray. "And where is the translator?"

"He might have run away. But I believe I can try to find him."

"He?"

"It was a boy in drag."

"Well, that would explain how she could have disappeared without a trace." The man admitted. "I'd like to talk to him. You surely understand, your fingers aren't the only thing that's at stake here, it's about our organization's international relations."

"I understand."

* * *

It'd been a year but Shiki could still remember the boy's name and the name of his middle school even though he hoped to never meet that disturbing creature again. It was a minor inconvenience that the kid had gone to high school in the meantime. The regular division of Awakusu-kai had the right ties in all the right places to provide him with information about which high school it was though.

Shiki parked the car directly in front of the school gate of Raijin around the time the afternoon classes ended. It was an older model of a black Toyota Celsior in impeccable condition with all windows tinted impermeable black. He got out and leaned against the side of the car, lighting up a cigarette. He surveyed the students leaving the school grounds, his eyes lingering on exposed thighs of more rebellious schoolgirls who had shortened their skirts. A few of them smiled at him, passing by. The other students stared curiously before looking away.

The boy he was waiting for left the school as one of the last students, a scrawny bespectacled kid accompanying him.

"It seems an old friend of mine is here to see me." Izaya said to Shinra.

Shiki had no doubts it was the kid from last year, even though he looked decidedly more mature now. Part of that could have been the effect of the school uniform his own size he had on.

"See you sometime!" He waved his friend goodbye before walking up to Shiki. "To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?"

"Get in."

Izaya scowled but he got into the passenger seat, dropping his school bag at his feet.

"Are you interested in some of my services?" He asked when Shiki got into the car, looking at him curiously. "Or have you come to pay off your debt? Or is it about what happened last year?" He smiled smugly. "Have you finally realized that I tricked all those men into killing each other back then?"

"How?"

"Essentially, I told the Russians you were going to start shooting. So they shot first." Izaya explained gleefully.

The car stopped abruptly even though they'd only just started moving, the force of the braking making Izaya slump forward in his seat.

"What do you mean: you told them?"

"I told their boss you wanted to talk with him one on one and I told the same to you. And when we walked away, I told him I've overheard you discussing setting them up earlier. I said I didn't want to die so I was telling him so I could get away. And the naive fool motioned for the other Russians to fire and shot your boss himself." Izaya laughed. "All those suspicions you held of each other. It was like lighting up a single spark in a room full of gasoline fumes. And boom it went." His laughter died down but the childlike joy in his voice was still present. "You're probably wondering why I did that, Shiki-san. Well, I have some rather unorthodox hobbies. This is just one of them. Also, you've treated me so badly." Izaya added with a sigh after a while of just staring at Shiki's wide eyes in his carefully emotionless face with a knowing smile. "I came in expecting an honest deal and you didn't even mean to pay me. It's understandable that I rooted for the Russians."

Being a yakuza member, Shiki had seen different things in his life. Some of them more disturbing than others. But a boy like that, going around arranging other people's deaths simply because it apparently amused him, was unlike anything he'd seen before.

"You're wondering why you're still alive, don't you?" Izaya guessed. "Well, right, I could have stayed silent and let this Russian guy shoot you. I doubt you would have made it to your gun fast enough without my warning. And even if so, I could have made sure you wouldn't have interfered. You were right behind me after all and I had my switchblade with me. It wouldn't have been difficult to plunge it into your stomach. I would have gotten myself a suitcase full of dollars." Izaya sighed. "But well... For one, I can't drive. I'm still a kid after all. That's bothersome sometimes. And also, I wanted to let someone live to see their reaction sometime later. It wouldn't have been nearly as much fun if everyone but me died back then. So I decided to spare you. Even though you hit me the previous night. Don't take that personally though. I don't really like you."

"Who do you think you are?" Shiki's hand reached to the front of Izaya's jacket with abrupt fierceness.

He knocked the switchblade out of the boy's hand before it could fully open with his other hand.

"I think it was really your fault." Izaya continued, unperturbed by the loss of his weapon. "You've trusted a random boy you've just met with everything. You've even threatened to kill me. Hasn't it occurred to you that if I thought I was going to die within hours anyway, I might have as well decided to take you all with me?"

"The oyabun wishes to talk to you. You will be dead after he hears that."

Shiki let the boy go with that and started the car again.

"So that's what you've come for..." Izaya reasoned. "That's pretty exciting actually. I've never met a yakuza boss before. Won't they kill you as well after they learn of your stupidity, though, Shiki-san? I've heard the yakuza was a pretty ruthless organization. Or will 'I'm sorry' do?"

Shiki's eyes narrowed.

"So I guess your oyabun wants me alive." Izaya smiled. "You can't kill me." He remarked joyfully. "And I'd suggest you get on my good side this time around if you want me to talk our way out of this. How much time do we have left?"

Shiki didn't answer.

The kid was wholly batshit fucking insane, in fact, if he thought he could talk his way out of staging an incident that had resulted in the death of twelve yakuza members and international tension while facing a yakuza boss.

So this was how it was going to end, Shiki thought. The last day of his life. There were a myriad better ways to spend it than putting up with the little scheming bastard.

"I guess... since you must have left yourself some more time to find me in case I wasn't at school today or left without you noticing, we probably still have another day." Izaya relaxed in the car seat, peeking out of the window. "I can blame it all on you easily enough. A second-in-command is such a precarious position after all. But I will let you try to convince me having you around may be profitable to me somehow."

"You can't do shit. And I'd suggest you face that, punk."

Izaya sighed.

"All right. Have it your way. But if we're both going to die tomorrow night anyway, we may as well have some fun before that."

* * *

"The accommodations are so much better this time around." Izaya remarked upon entering the Shinjuku office where Shiki currently resided.

Shiki nodded his greeting in the general direction of a group of yakuza playing mahjong in the hall. They ignored him even though some of them looked up to see who had entered the building. But they averted their eyes right away, busying themselves with the game. It was the kind of transparency of a man as good as dead.

Shiki guided Izaya into one of the rooms on the second floor and pushed him onto the leather coach dotted with cigarette burn marks.

"Did you have to come back here? I bet you could have taken me to nicer places." The kid remarked in an obnoxious voice, pulling himself up to a sitting position.

A pounding headache was pulsating in Shiki's skull. It was true he could have gone anywhere. It was also true it wasn't going to change a thing.

Izaya leaned back on the couch with a sigh.

"You're not making me like you, Shiki-san. I bet the oyabun will be thrilled to hear the story of your treason." Izaya remarked smugly, the obnoxious smirk adorning his face totally unsuited for a sixteen year old's childlike features.

A worthless little scrawny brat who dressed in drag and pretended to be a whore. How bad was it to be mocked by a creature such as this?

"I don't like the way you're looking at me. Are you going to hit me again?"

Dark red eyes looked up at him with interest but without fear. Was this boy ever afraid, Shiki wondered. Or was he too insane for that?

A year ago, he had hit him to interrupt his obnoxious tirade in which he'd pointed out Shiki's apparent ambition to advance from the second-in-command position. Shiki didn't like to be read like an open book. He had been still infallibly maneuvered right where Izaya had wanted him back then and his wish to be transferred to the regular division had been granted.

It was impressive, in a way.

He grabbed a handful of soft black hair at the back of the boy's head. Izaya winced at the pain.

"Will your boss be happy with you bringing me in beaten up? It'd look as if you tried extortion."

This situation was so peculiar. Shiki thought about how no matter what he did, it was going to be somehow expected and probably had already been foreseen by the little demon in his grasp. No matter if he beat him up, cut his tongue out, killed him, suicided, went on a rampage, those were all logical conclusions to what had been started a year ago in this boy's head.

Izaya held all the strings in his hand. And the only way out and the only sliver of hope was to placate him into pulling them in his favor. However absurd the whole notion was.

Izaya tilted his head sideways in a well-practiced motion when Shiki's lips invaded his. He was really accommodating in a way Shiki wouldn't have expected.

He pulled the kid's head back forcefully before the kiss could get any heated. The mild astonishment was there in Izaya's eyes only for the briefest of moments. His next breath hitched.

"Is kissing high school boys something you do regularly? Or was it meant specifically to make me fall in love with you all of a sudden?"

"I don't kiss anyone." It was a simple statement of a simple fact.

"So I've heard." Izaya smiled contentedly, all traces of uncertainty gone in a blink of an eye. "It seems we're reaching a mutual understanding here, Shiki-san. Everything you never do, you will do for me. I'll risk my life to save yours in exchange." Izaya's eyes narrowed. "And believe me, that's not something I ever do either. But I guess, with how I mean to spend my life, I can use some friends in high places. You have this ability I would have expected in a yakuza as successful in climbing up the ladder as yourself." Izaya remarked softly, licking his lips. "You know just the right tree to bark up."

His eyes narrowed in pain when Shiki's fist collided with his stomach. He couldn't slump forward with how the yakuza's other hand was still holding the back of his head upright. Vomit rose up in his throat instead.

Even at sixteen Izaya had been past playing around with the minds of all kinds of people. His parents, his little sisters and other little girls, his schoolmates, his teachers, his shrink, the random men he'd encountered in his night-time travels throughout the shady parts of this city, dressed in drag or merely pretending to be a lost little boy who needed help and protection. Not to mention his newly discovered toy named Shizuo, donned with inhuman strength and total cluelessness.

But among all these people, the man in front of him was probably the most dangerous he'd ever played with. He was strong, efficient, capable of inhuman ruthlessness and nowhere near clueless. Given the right information, he'd figured out his only chance was cooperating with Izaya fast enough.

A year had been a long time to figure out his escape routes, something Izaya had amused himself with while dozing off in boring classes or pretending to do homework. There was an easy one, a nearly infallible one, that went all about blaming the incident on Shiki. And there was the risky one that was going to get both of them out of this unscathed.

Izaya rather liked challenges. Though consciously putting his life at stake wasn't exactly his thing, even back then, when his teenage foolishness and first tries at bravado got him in quite a few situations when a stray bullet or a simple lack of luck in avoiding hits might have been all it took to end his life.

He could use having a man such as Shiki on his side further down the road indeed. Given enough time and enough luck Shiki was going to become a yakuza boss, after all. And that was a position in some ways akin to that of a God.

"You seem to always hit me when I'm right about you." Izaya said, forcing a smile upon his face even though he still felt somewhat dizzy. The punch had been mean. And the rings on Shiki's fingers had only made it more painful. "I will probably stop trying to analyze you because it fucking hurts."

"What do you plan on telling the oyabun?" Shiki let him go and started walking in circles around the room.

Izaya's eyes followed him cautiously, the impeccable white suit and everything. He licked his lips again.

"I'll blame the Russians."

"It'll be your word against theirs."

"Sure. And who would you believe?" Izaya smiled self-assuredly. "Russian mafia or a little scared Japanese boy?"

"I'll dare a guess the oyabun is all for blaming it on me." Shiki spoke up, stopping to light up a cigarette. "Since the division didn't lose its money, what's the point in holding a grudge against the Russians besides spoiling business?" He took a calming drag of his cigarette. "They're aware that since I'm the one bringing you in, you may be somehow on my side. If you try to protect me, they will probably torture you to see what you will say then."

"My word against theirs. If I keep on saying the same thing, they will let us go. You'll stuff me with prescription painkillers tomorrow. If I'll get myself your lifelong loyalty, Shiki-san, it'd still be worth it." Izaya reasoned.

"You shouldn't worry about that. The yakuza may go astray at times but at heart we're the most honorable men around."

Izaya laughed albeit his laughter was subdued. Shiki realized there was nothing malicious about it. It was all joy.

"Nobody talks like that normally." Izaya pointed out. "Say, Shiki-san, are you a burakumin? Is that why such things are so important for you?"

"I'm not." Shiki resumed his walk around the room. "I wasn't forced into the yakuza by any circumstances. It was my own decision."

"I'm starting to like you." Izaya confessed, his eyes still following Shiki's every move. "Does this pacing around mean you're nervous?" He stood up from the couch, stretching his abused abdominal muscles. "I can help you unwind, so to speak."

It was Shiki's turn to laugh.

Izaya felt slightly offended by his offer getting treated like a joke.

"I know of better ways to spend the night that may well enough be our last, kid." Shiki leaned down to look him in the eye,blowing cigarette smoke out right into his face. "You know how the yakuza controls all the brothels within the group's turf?"

"I imagine." Izaya licked his lips.

Shiki walked away from him to crush the cigarette in the overfilled ashtray even though there were already cigarette burn marks left on every piece of furniture in the room. He headed to the door and Izaya followed him of his own free will, all of a sudden feeling very self-conscious about his school uniform.

His curiosity was picked. He'd met a lot of prostitutes of both sexes in the clubs and out on the streets and even made friends with some of them but for obvious reasons he'd never been to a brothel before.

"If your oyabun gets to know about this though..." He spoke up out in the hallway.

"You're his guest for now. He'll be happy you've enjoyed yourself."

"But he will kill me the next day. Isn't your organization's way of operation peculiar." Izaya chuckled.

They passed by the yakuza sitting around in the hall, engrossed in their never-ending mahjongg game, undisturbed. Once inside the car, Izaya picked his switchblade up from between the seats and pocketed it.

* * *

"Kabukicho. I guess I'm one lucky high-schooler." Izaya commented when they arrived at their destination after a short ride, the bright lights on the streets so numerous they were blinding.

"I'm not taking you to some weird place so I hope you do girls as well because that's all that's on offer here." Shiki remarked, walking through the street, crowded despite the late hour, towards an especially brightly illuminated establishment bearing the outward signs of a love hotel.

"Honestly, I never did a girl before. I'm sixteen, remember?" Izaya pointed out, smiling at one of the two burly men in shades who were guarding the entrance.

They didn't react to the two of them unceremoniously intruding upon that place at all. Shiki walked through the hall in relaxed strides. Pretty girls in short low-cut dresses were wandering around or pretending to read magazines while leaning back invitingly on the couches placed around the hall. Their eyes followed Shiki's figure closely even though he ignored them, proceeding towards the staircase in the back of the room without looking around even once.

Izaya's arm wrapped itself around his in a needy gesture Shiki didn't quite understand, as if the kid was jealous of the girls appreciative glances. He shook it off.

"I'm aware you may be used to things being the other way around but you're the customer here tonight, not the whore, so don't act like one." He commented before starting to climb up the stairs.

"You got the wrong idea. I was never actually a whore. And it's not like that at all, Shiki-san, I just don't like it when nobody's looking at me." Izaya informed him with a smile before clinging to his side again.

That gesture served its purpose of catching attention of everyone in the hall quite all right. Izaya distanced himself immediately after they reached the hallway on the first floor, though, probably aware pushing his luck too much wasn't a good idea.

They took a turn into another hallway, this one wide and filled with girls wearing way less clothes than the ones on the ground floor, parading around in elaborate lingerie, corsets and see-through gowns. They were all young, pretty, well-groomed and tastefully dressed. Most looked Japanese.

"This place sure is classy."

"It is the best Awakusu-kai has." Shiki admitted. "I wouldn't have chosen any less for a night like this."

"So you didn't consider Kanra-chan exquisite enough." Izaya sounded hurt, feigning a sigh. His eyes followed one of the girls, a bleached blond in a baby blue corset, studying her movements.

Was the kid cataloging the way she moved for use in his own performances or was he simply drawn to her beauty on the simplest carnal level? Shiki couldn't tell.

A madam in a long grey dress buttoned up neatly up to her chin emerged.

"Shiki-san, I didn't expect you!" She let the words slip from her lips before smiling apologetically upon realizing her mistake. She didn't expect him indeed, not ever again. Shiki was aware how fast the rumors could spread within the organization, reaching even places such as this in record time. "Fortunately, your favorite isn't taken." She informed him right away to cover up her slip. "Will it be the usual tonight?"

He nodded, taking a cigarette out. She hurried over to light it up for him.

"Who is your guest there, Shiki-san?" She asked politely, her eyes skimming over Izaya's face with no particular interest.

"It's someone I need to deliver for a meeting with the boss tomorrow."

Her eyes traveled back to Izaya's face when she heard that, lingering for a longer time this time around.

"Is this the moment when I am supposed to order something?" Izaya asked, looking her right in the eye even as she realized upon closer inspection that what he was wearing was a school uniform, his self-assurance not wavering even for a second. "I'm afraid the only way for me to sound suitably knowledgeable here is to say I'll share your usual, Shiki-san." He said with a witty smile.

The madam laughed, her laughter beautiful and studious, Izaya's eyes absorbing every little detail of it for his own purposes.

"Go on. If this is what you want. The girls will surely manage." She assured him. "Are you okay with this though, Shiki-san?"

"He may be right actually, letting kids like him play here on their own might be unreasonable."

"What a responsible adult you are, Shiki-san." Izaya sighed.

The madam left their side with a polite smile to make some calls.

"So, what is your usual?" Izaya asked, looking up at Shiki curiously. "Girls... So more than one. Nice, do they kiss and lick each other? Or is there some other reason you need more than one?"

"It's more about putting on a show than anything else." Shiki only answered when they left the room, motioned towards the door by the madam.

"Because you're in the yakuza? So you have to fuck their girls real good for them to be happy with your organization's 'protection'? That's a bit absurd. But in fact, I've read something to that effect." Izaya outpaced him and started walking backwards in front of him. "I guess a brothel of all places can verify what's a man worth without relying on secondary clues." He walked back right into the door thus blocking Shiki's way. "I'd like to have that knowledge first-hand myself before I will put myself at stake for you."

Shiki removed him from his way by his shoulders as if he weighed nothing and entered the room.

Two pretty young women in school uniforms bowed down in perfect synchronization upon seeing them enter the room. They looked just a little bit too old for this kind of attire but maybe it was only Izaya's impression and they looked just right to adult men.

"It seems I'm dressed quite all right for the occasion in the end." He commented, tugging at the collar of his school uniform's jacket. "Is this their regular work attire here or part of your usual, Shiki-san?" He laughed. "I always thought salarymen in their forties got off on lolicon, not young men like you." He stopped laughing. "At least I'll know what to wear next time we meet."

"Ne ne, is he talking so much to cover his embarrassment? So cute!" One of the girls exclaimed.

"I see there's some more elaborate act on offer here." Izaya pointed out before walking up to her. "I'd prefer it if you imagined I was your teacher though."

The girl, who must have been some five years his senior, fell down to her knees in front of him without a single strange look or any hitch in her act.

"I'm sorry for talking back, sensei. This will never happen again."

"Shiki-san... Fuck." Izaya turned around to say something only to be greeted with the sight of the other girl making Shiki hard with tentative licks along his shaft while he was still smoking his cigarette with a perfectly straight face.

"What do you want me to do to repent for talking back, sensei?" The prostitute kneeling in front of Izaya asked encouragingly.

Izaya's eyes were still glued to Shiki's length, disappearing in the other girl's mouth inch by inch.

"Have you never seen another man like that?" She asked, partially dropping her act since it was getting her nowhere anyway.

"On the contrary, I even did that myself." Izaya answered, his eyes snapping back to the girl's face. He stretched out his hand towards her and pulled her up to her feet and towards the bed. He sat down on it and unzipped his pants, taking out his erection with a sigh. "I doubt I could have stood my way upright through a blowjob like him, though."

"Do you want me to use a condom?" The girl asked practically, ignoring his insight.

"There's no need, they're clean here." Shiki spoke up, still smoking his cigarette in deep puffs even while the girl was licking him, his hand twined in her dyed hair steering her motions.

"No, then." Izaya agreed, watching the prostitute lower her head between his legs. As soon as her lips closed around his length he looked up to see if Shiki was looking. He was indeed but his eyes didn't wander below Izaya's face. "She's not going to have a hard time here." Izaya commented good-naturedly.

"You still have time to grow." Shiki pointed out.

"If I live past tomorrow."

Izaya fell back on the bed and closed his eyes, watching the colors swirl under his eyelids. He had no problems with girls touching him and this one here was a fine example and knew what she was doing while at it but there was something missing in the pleasure she was giving him. Maybe because she was essentially forced by such straightforward means as money or in this case, Shiki's position in the yakuza. Or maybe because he would have rather done something else with someone else. He shivered upon hearing a faint sigh escape Shiki's lips a few feet away.

He forced the girl's head off him with a shove and sat up.

The other prostitute was dropped down on the bed right by his side, rushing to pull down her panties from under her pleated skirt. Shiki forced himself between her legs, helping her get rid of her panties with one hand, while putting off his cigarette in the ashtray on the night table next to the bed with the other.

Izaya slid the uniform jacket off his shoulders and reached down to take off his shirt.

The girl gasped when Shiki entered her.

"Shall I undress, too?" The prostitute sitting on the floor between Izaya's legs asked, looking up at him questioningly, ignoring the couple next to them completely.

"I don't care." He answered indifferently, sliding his pants off.

"What are you doing?" Shiki asked with mild interest, gazing up at him. The girl under him was clawing at his shoulders and panting loudly.

Izaya wondered how much of that was an act.

"Enjoying myself." He answered before turning to the girl who was supposed to pleasure him. "Do you have lube here? Well, I guess you have to. How could you get wet for everyone otherwise." He pointed out. "Bring me some."

The girl looked at Shiki questioningly but he seemed to be finally getting into what he was doing with the other prostitute and no longer paid any attention to the two of them so she stood up from the floor and left the room.

Izaya wrapped his hand tightly around his weeping length, making himself shiver, and pulled the foreskin up forcefully to prolong his erection. The girl took her sweet time retrieving the lube. Well, she was at work after all, he figured. She probably stopped by for gossip.

He forced himself to look the other way to avoid catching sight of the intercourse taking place right by his side. Being so blatantly ignored put him on edge more than he would've liked to admit.

The prostitute threw the tube of lube to him as soon as she was back and stopped in front of him, unsure of what to do when he uncapped it and poured a generous amount over his fingers. She doubted it was meant for her.

The girl Shiki was fucking sounded as if she was coming with high-pitched screams of unintelligible words and deep moans escaping her. Izaya forced one of his slickened fingers inside him and grit his teeth to keep a straight face while stretching himself.

"Can I help?" The girl standing over him sat down by his side and took hold of his wrist when he nodded. "Don't go that rough on yourself. I won't do this for you with these nails but... please go slower."

"What are you doing?" Shiki asked him again once he was done with the girl, sitting up and taking out a cigarette. The prostitute, still panting hard, was cleaning him up with a piece of cloth.

"Can you make him hard again?" Izaya asked her, ignoring Shiki's question.

"Not if he doesn't like that." She shook her head, looking at Izaya incredulously, only now realizing what he was doing.

"You're very persistent." Shiki said, pocketing the cigarette he hadn't lit up yet. "Is it because I kissed you? I think I won't make that mistake ever again, then."

Izaya removed three fingers shining with slickness from his body and looked up at Shiki, his face and naked body flushed and irises wide with excitement.

"I don't want to die without ever having sex."

"The girls would have gladly helped you with that."

"I'll start doing girls once I grow a dick."

The prostitute by his side couldn't hold back her snicker.

"Do you want us to leave?" She asked softly as Shiki positioned himself between Izaya's spread legs with a sigh, bringing his own erection back with long strokes.

"Preferably." He agreed. "Have you really never done this before?" He asked the boy, taking a hold of his chin and forcing him to look him in the eye. "Else I'm putting on a condom. I don't want some disease you've caught whoring yourself out on the streets."

"You really think I would have enjoyed giving up control to random men like that?" Red eyes looked up at him challengingly.

"I don't understand anything about your reasoning anyway."

Izaya watched the girls leave the room over Shiki's shoulder before falling back down on the bed, wrapping his legs around the man's hips with a satisfied sigh. He seemed to be very pleased with the mere attention.

"I will only do this because you want it so much, just this once." Shiki said. "I'm not interested in kids otherwise. So don't come back for more until you're eighteen."

"Is that a promise, Shiki-san?" Izaya asked softly, gasping when Shiki pushed him down on the bed with his weight and the tip of his erection slipped inside. "Do you actually believe I won't betray you tomorrow?"

"I don't hold much hope either way."

"Then... why aren't you running away?" Izaya's hands gripped the sheets at his sides but he was still talking.

"Where could I run away to from the yakuza? And what would I do without my honor?"

"I never thought I'd meet a man who cared about such things. Even while he's penetrating a sixteen year old boy."

Shiki buried himself all the way in one fluid motion, effectively shutting him up.

There were tears in Izaya's eyes when he blinked them open.

"So, how do I feel compared to that whore?" He asked, catching his breath with difficulty, his voice soft and trembling. He pulled himself up a bit and wrapped his arms around Shiki's shoulders.

"All kinds of wrong."

Izaya laughed at Shiki's comment. There was an edge of madness to his laughter. His body was spasming around the sudden intrusion, only serving to make it more painful. The hands on Shiki's shoulders fisted in his jacket, mirroring what the prostitute's hands had been doing a few minutes ago.

Shiki thought how after a night like this, his jacket was going to be effectively ruined.

"You should try relaxing." He suggested, Izaya's laughter and the unbearable tightness clamping down on his erection grating on his nerves while all the instincts inside him urged him to move. He needed the boy to look presentable tomorrow though and that included the ability to walk straight.

"I'm just a bit... overwhelmed." Izaya admitted. He forced himself to think about different things, more calming than the here and now in a brothel, under an adult yakuza's body, with the gun in his pocket poking Izaya's side and with tomorrow looming over their heads.

His reason was leaving him though, enveloped in impermeable haze. Much sooner than he'd like, he felt his seed spurt all over his stomach.

Shiki withdrew immediately, leaving him cold, empty and abandoned the moment his mind cleared from the orgasm high. It was like hitting a cold unforgiving ground after a short flight.

Izaya drew in a shaky breath. A piece of cloth was dropped on his stomach unceremoniously but he was too dazed to wipe himself off right away.

"And that's why I wasn't interested." Shiki commented, getting down to finishing himself off with his own hands.

Izaya didn't make for an enticing display for him, naked and spent on the huge bed. He didn't look like much. A pang of guilt throbbed in Shiki's chest at the thought of having fucked a kid like him. On the other hand, his mind, even while childlike in a way, had none of the characteristics of that of an ordinary kid which made the act much less atrocious somehow.

* * *

"So I guess the girl was more fun than me in the end..." Izaya said softly once they were back in the car.

"Forget about it." Shiki shrugged indifferently in the driver's seat.

"You're telling me to forget about my first time right after it happened. Isn't this a bit much to expect, Shiki-san?" Izaya asked with a weak smile. He still seemed quite absent-minded. "Where are we going?"

"I thought you might be hungry."

"How gentlemanly of you, Shiki-san. A regular date should have probably gone the other way around but still, I accept your invitation."

* * *

The cinnamon-scented smoke wafted up in the air from the old man's cigarette. Several yakuza standing around the room were displaying their weapons quite prominently while Shiki's gun had been taken away from him upon entering. It was a clear enough sign of distrust.

Pleasantries and introductions were exchanged. Izaya kept in the back, making himself look small and insignificant. Vomit had been steadily rising in his throat for some time now, his stomach irritated by whatever numbing-down substance Shiki had given him earlier. Izaya doubted it had much to do with regular painkillers.

"So you were the translator for the deal with the Russians a year ago." The yakuza boss addressed him, studying him in a rather dubious way. "You were fifteen at the time. How come you knew Russian fluently at that age at all?"

Izaya took a tentative step forward from behind Shiki's back. He wasn't really nervous and it was pure excitement that was making his insides clench but he was feigning nervousness because letting anyone in this room know he was anything more than a pretty ordinary sixteen-year old who had strayed a bit from the right path wasn't his intention.

Then again, maybe it was what he really was anyway.

"Family ties." He answered so softly the old man could barely hear him.

"The day before the deal the men who were there when you were recruited for this job were convinced you were a girl, around seventeen or eighteen years old. What was the meaning of that drag act?"

"It's just something I do to pass the time. I go to the clubs dressed like that."

"You never appeared there again after this incident."

"Not in this exact costume, no. I was scared." Izaya confessed in a small voice.

"You were scared of what?"

"Of someone shooting me as well. Because everyone else who was there that day was killed by the Russians."

"Not everyone." The yakuza pointed out. "Shiki here escaped just fine. You didn't know about that?"

"No. I ran away and I didn't care anymore until he contacted me yesterday."

"Are you sure about that? We're aware he might have made some kind of an additional deal with you." The man pointed out. "I suggest you don't side with him at this point if that was the case. Actually, that would have been very stupid of you."

"What do you mean by an additional deal?" Izaya asked cluelessly.

"He might have convinced you to say something to the Russians that made them shoot all of our men but not him, using the fact that you were the only person there who could understand both sides."

"I only translated what they said. I don't even know why they started shooting."

"Why have you agreed to do this job at all?"

"Well..." Izaya hesitated. "You should know well enough your men forced me to do it when I met them to discuss the terms. But I hoped for money, I guess."

"We ran a little check on you. There's nothing you could have possibly needed money for at first glance. You come from a respectable family. Your parents are rich people. They can surely provide for you."

"That's not enough."

"You mean you would have done anything if you were paid well enough?"

"Yes, essentially. But I wouldn't be so stupid as to go against the yakuza."

"What do you mean by going against the yakuza? Surely your insight into our internal matters hasn't been good enough for you to differentiate with any level of certainty what was the yakuza's wish and what was Shiki's here personal goals. What I mean is: you might have made a mistake of siding with the wrong party last year. We're not going to punish you for that if you confess now. On the other hand, if you stick to the version of events that's so damaging to our relationship with our Russian friends..."

* * *

Shiki put his gun back into the inside pocket of his jacket, verifying that it was still loaded. It had been given back to him and no fingers or a head of his had been severed either.

Apparently, the oyabun had been sufficiently convinced Izaya had been telling the truth or at the very least there seemed to be no way to extract anything else than the initial account from him.

The organization's international relations hanging on the words of a sixteen year old was really quite ironic.

Shiki hadn't been present during the following part of the conversation, if what had happened in that room could have even been called one after that point.

Apparently, his presence had been considered a disrupting influence. Granted, Izaya was just a kid and on the level of appearances it might have seemed like he could have brainwashed him into believing all the wrong things.

It was all forgotten now though as if the whole thing hadn't happened at all. The weird looks were going to be gone within a few weeks. Shiki couldn't help but feel relieved after being convinced he had been done for.

"Are you happy with yourself now?" He looked up to see Akabayashi walking up to him and leaning in to look him in the eye. Shiki didn't look away if that was what the other man hoped for. "You're alive. Your position is secured for now. And you have to clean this up." Akabayashi nudged the body lying on the floor with the tip of his shoe. There was no reaction from the boy.

Looking down at every bit of the boy's body that wasn't covered by clothes swelling in a way that promised ugly bruises for days to come, Shiki hoped he hadn't suffered too much at least with how numbed down he must have been by the drugs he'd given him.

"I think you have the wrong idea, Akabayashi-san."

"What wrong idea do I have? You seem to fare pretty well for someone who was accused of treason. But it's only because this kid didn't spill anything through being beaten half to death. What have you done to him?"

"Your concern would have been much more heart-warming if not for the little detail that you were the one to beat him up." Shiki pointed out, taking out a cigarette.

"A job is a job. It left a bad taste in my mouth though." Akabayashi scooped Izaya up off the floor and into his arms. "Where's your car?"

"You're taking him somewhere?" Shiki inquired as if it had nothing to do with him.

"You do. I'll help you, since it doesn't seem you're interested enough once he's served his purpose."

Shiki followed reluctantly when Akabayashi headed to the exit of the main headquarters of the organization, its cover being an art trading company. Now that he was no longer in imminent danger, Shiki's ambitions regarding this place were reignited and he was leaving it with a promise to himself of coming back one day.

Izaya's body was dropped in the rear seat of his Celsior, fitting there quite comfortably as small as it was.

"Take him to the hospital." Akabayashi commanded. "I was trying not to break anything inside him. He will heal."

Shiki got behind the wheel reluctantly.

Akabayashi walked up to the driver door.

"Why do you seem to think like I'm concerned?" Shiki could sense there was something amiss in the other man's judgment of the situation. He wished a less sharp thug had been used for roughing Izaya up.

"Imagine my surprise upon visiting one of our brothels in Kabukicho this morning and getting to know the newest rumor from the girls there." Akabayashi leaned down towards him, his arm resting at the top of the car's door. "Namely you having fucked a boy in a school uniform you've brought with yourself there last night. I told them not to spread such nonsense rumors. But now that I think about it..." Akabayashi's eyes landed on the small figure curled up on the rear seat. "Say, Shiki, is there some tearful love story at work here in this kid's mind? Has he gone through this for you because he loves you that much? And what has really happened a year ago then?"

"Actually, this kid's nothing like what you seem to think, Akabayashi-san." Shiki crushed his cigarette in the car ash tray. "The little cunning bitch made everyone in our junior division but me die last year for his own amusement. He did say the wrong thing to the Russian boss, out of his very own accord. And he's only covered for me now because he wanted my loyalty. I don't know what he's planning next but we'll hear of him for sure in the years to come."

"Ha ha, that's such a bad joke, Shiki." Akabayashi laughed briefly. "Except I know you never joke." He looked at the unconscious boy with renowned interest.

* * *

Izaya's consciousness returned to him, full of pain radiating from every single part of his body, including some internal parts he hadn't even known he'd had.

After a moment of getting used to the unsupportable levels of pain emanating from his body he realized he was lying down curled up in a fetal position and that he must have been in a moving car. His first thought was that he was in its trunk and that that was it for him. He was going to be shot or dropped into the Tokyo Bay or maybe buried alive, his performance in front of the oyabun not deemed convincing enough.

"You've woken up?" Shiki's voice coming from the front of the car made him realize that couldn't have been the case though. If he was going to be killed, then Shiki should have already been dead.

He forced one eye open, the swell that had already formed around it blocking most of his vision, and realized he was in the rear seat of a car and there was nobody but Shiki with him.

"So we won?" He wanted to ask but realized it was too much effort to speak in his current condition. "Fuck..." It was all he managed to utter in a hoarse whisper after spilling two broken teeth out. Running his tongue along the ridges, he noticed the inside of his mouth was all swollen. His face and his whole body were too.

He had never even known a human could have been beaten up like that without actually breaking the skin and external bleeding at all but with everything inside changed into a pulp.

"Lay still there."

He had to admit whatever drugs Shiki had given him earlier had been quite good. He hadn't really felt enough pain to correspond to the damage that had been happening to him. Tears he couldn't stop welled up in his eyes at the thought that he might have had sacrificed way too much for this.

Everything had worked out just like he had expected and that was usually enough to make him feel good about whatever outcomes his games ended with but it was not enough this time when everything hurt so much he would have rather died.

"I've heard you were very brave back there. Don't spoil that now that it's done." Shiki spoke up, looking back at him closely in the rear view mirror when the car stopped at a red light. "There's no way for you to change your mind anyway at this point. I assure you it was the first and the last time you had my life in your hands. I will never underestimate you again. You, on the other hand, have nothing going for you right now. I should probably kill you. But I've already told you I'm a honorable man."

"More than once." Izaya replied in his mind. "Where are we going?" He uttered softly despite the additional pain it caused him. He hated not knowing. It was true the control he'd had over Shiki for all this time was gone now. The charges had been dropped. Shiki no longer needed him for anything and it made him feel quite uneasy.

"I'll drop you off at a hospital."

"Call my parents first. The phone number's in my wallet." Izaya suggested weakly before letting himself drift back into the merciful unconsciousness a moment later.

* * *

He was in a hospital bed when he woke up again, not feeling much better.

He spent weeks there, amusing himself with thinking up a plausible story that would have explained his injuries to his parents, the doctors and the police and repeating it over and over again with brilliant results.

Only after getting out of the hospital he found the additional slip of paper in his wallet that hadn't been there before.

An address, a phone number. A 'If you can't find me there anymore, say your name and you'll be informed where I moved. I'll tell someone that you are entitled to know where I am at all times.'

Izaya smiled to himself. He'd made a deal, he'd paid the price, he'd gotten something in return. And it was probably worth it, all things considered.

He was going to contact this man again one day, he thought, putting the slip of paper back in his wallet.


	3. Denial 3

"Are you sure you can still drive?" Shiki asked quite indifferently, considering Izaya was already driving, they were out on the highway and the car was a Lamborghini, which arguably left little room for error.

"How long does it usually take you to get here from Shinjuku, Shiki-san?"

"It's around six hours for the average person but I can get it down to five."

"Let's try four."

Shiki shrugged.

"Aren't you glad I'm going back with you?" Izaya asked after awhile of just driving. "I wondered why you drove yourself here every time you were coming instead of using a driver but in fact, I think I know. It's ridiculous for a yakuza boss to travel so far just to meet an unimportant informant like me so nobody can know."

"It is. But don't let it get to your head. We've had an agreement and I'm still bound by it."

"It seems I have to disappoint you, Shiki-san." Izaya smiled knowingly. "But you're not bound by anything to continue fucking me after all these years or getting unreasonable like spreading rumors you would have been unhappy if any other yakuza touched me."

"That's not unreasonable." Shiki pointed out. "You're my informant so you're not up for grabs. You should have gotten used to it by now, too. Because I made that clear to everyone back when you came to me when you turned eighteen."

"I did notice that. Suddenly a lot of my business dried up. And I mean the informant business of course. Great times anyway. I bet you remember how we had sex during your wedding. On that note, how is your wife?"

"That's none of your concern, Orihara-kun."

"I guess."

"I think you should stop that car." Shiki pointed out, surveying Izaya's gloved hands starting to tremble on the steering wheel.

Izaya complied reluctantly once it was safe to stop and let go of the steering wheel with a sigh.

"Your body is ruined so badly." Shiki noted with a strange glimmer in his eyes. "You really shouldn't get ahead of yourself."

"But don't you like me broken like that, Shiki-san? You may think it serves me right for what I did to your junior division back in the day."

Shiki got out of the car and approached it from the other side.

"It actually serves you right for all the times you've acted as if you were invincible." He replied coldly, pulling Izaya out of the driver's seat. "Or for never growing up. I could have made a man out of you if you joined the yakuza, killed a few people, got the tattoos, followed something other than your own whim. You could have been doing what you do in a lot more straightforward manner. But no, that is not good enough for you. How did it work out for you trying not to kill with your own hands if you ended up murdering your own little sister?"

"Don't you care about me a lot, Shiki-san." Izaya sighed in the yakuza's embrace. The smell of cigarettes apparent from up close stirred unwanted memories in his mind. For the briefest of moments he considered trying to kiss Shiki but that was a bad idea because he really never kissed anyone and had never kissed Izaya again after that one time back when Izaya had been a kid. "Thanks for letting me drive your car, I guess. Or shall I express my gratitude more elaborately?"

"Later. Get in and shut up now."

Izaya attempted to shake the feeling but as he got in the car and it started moving again, he couldn't stop but think of Shizuo. That was what the smell of cigarettes was doing to him now and that was why Shiki couldn't help him forget despite what he might have hoped for.

But this nonsense was going to be over soon either way.

* * *

Shizuo's attack on the Blue Squares happened at the worst possible moment, just as Aoba was cut by Saika and fallen into a coma.

When he woke up, most of his gang was gone, some members injured and the others having scattered while he was unconscious.

There were still Dollars but the amorphous group, while outwardly under his command after Mikado's death, could be influenced in various ways but was in fact uncontrollable.

Aoba regretted his mistake of underestimating Anri like that a lot. He might have succeeded at turning her against Kida but the price he'd paid for that was way too high for his liking.

Several months had passed with both Kida and Izaya apparently gone from the city, making it impossible for Aoba to exert his revenge. He found out Izaya had been living in Kyoto after some research but that was the extent of what he knew.

But then someone from the Dollars board spotted Kida, the leader of the Yellow Scarves, arguing with his girlfriend on the street in Shibuya.

Aoba coaxed the person to follow Kida for him and found out where he lived.

And so after an endless string of bad luck the tide was finally turning.


	4. Anger

"Isn't this getting repetitive." Aoba sighed behind the shark mask.

Saki was dropped to the floor, her arms and legs bound and a cloth bag covering her head.

"Why would you say that?" Another boy in a shark mask asked him.

"Blue Squares have already kidnapped this girl once." Aoba explained. "She got both her legs broken back then but Kida didn't show up to help her. She was saved by someone else. He'll show up for sure this time around, though. Because he already knows how it feels."

"And then?"

"And then we'll kill him." Aoba declared.

"I don't think so. Nobody will risk so much for you under current circumstances. Unless you do it on your own."

The other boys in shark masks nodded in agreement.

"Fine."

Aoba walked up to the table where various weapons were laid out, avoided all manners of knives which would have become cursed blades in his hands, and settled on a crowbar.

"It will be enough if you hold him still."

Several hours passed before anything happened. Saki was breathing heavily through the cloth bag all this time, the time stretching endlessly for her. She wasn't so sure of Masaomi's feelings anymore. On the other hand, he was not going to abandon her in this particular situation even if he no longer otherwise cared for her.

"He's here!" A boy in a shark mask shouted from the doorway finally.

Kida entered the warehouse, his hands in his pockets and a hood over his head.

The Blue Squares members inside were wearing these ridiculous shark masks.

"Empty your pockets." One of them ordered.

Kida complied reluctantly, eyeing Saki's hunched down form lying on the floor in the middle of the warehouse.

"Let her go first." He demanded. "Now that you have me."

"We'll let her go when we're done here." One of the masked figures spoke up, walking up to Saki and removing the cloth bag from her head. "She's uninjured as you can see, unlike the last time. And it will stay that way if you cooperate."

Kida recognized the voice and the slight build after some thought. It was Kuronuma.

The masked figure straightened up and headed towards him, a crowbar in its hand.

The other Blue Squares rushed to Kida's side to hold him still.

So that was it, Aoba thought as he approached, summoning the resolve to go through with killing someone. There were things that depended upon his performance, the few people that were left in his gang looking at him now.

But as he got close to Kida, he realized that he wasn't alone in this situation, thoughts and feelings that were not his own taking over his mind and his eyes starting to glow red behind the shark mask.

He took the mask off tentatively, not of his own free will.

"Anri has cut you." Kida observed as soon as he looked him in the eye.

"What the fuck, Kuronuma?!" The Blue Squares members muttered among themselves.

Kida knew how being stabbed by Saika worked, at least in general terms, and he had already been saved by Saika's child once. If and only if Anri was all right with him dying now, he was going to die. And maybe that was how it should have been because if the only friend Kida had left was going to be indifferent about his death and let it happen when she could have stopped it then wasn't it pointless to continue living anyway?

Aoba lifted the crowbar as if he intended to hit him but instead dropped it to the floor.

* * *

The main headquarters of Awakusu-kai brought back memories for Izaya. Not only of the meeting with the oyabun years ago and the yakuza beating him up and then all the times he'd visited Shiki for business here once he'd become a higher-up but also of his encounter with Kida that had happened at the back of this place: Shizuo's betrayal, two times he'd died and the third time he hadn't but ended up with the pierced through hand he was still dealing with.

This place was always going to reek of blood for him because of that. But there was no avoiding it now that he had taken Shiki up on his offer.

It was in front of the headquarters that he met Shizuo again. Well, not exactly met him, but rather encountered his mutilated body lying at the bottom of the stairs leading up to the entrance. The sight was so incomprehensible Izaya just stared, not believing his eyes.

It might not have been Shizuo after all, he reasoned.

"It's good you're here already because I wanted to ask you something, Orihara-kun." Shiki spoke up upon exiting the building, a limousine with a driver waiting for him. "Shall we throw this into Tokyo Bay?" He nudged the body, its chest still moving up and down steadily, with the tip of his shoe. "Or do you have any other ideas?"

Izaya understood something in that moment. Something about the depths of the devotion Shiki had for him. He had always meant to manipulate this man into doing what he wanted, ever since he had been a sixteen year old intent on losing his virginity to him before risking his life to save him, messing with his head like that. Messing with his own head too. But the result had surpassed all his expectations.

Despite his threat Shizuo must have been looking for him here after he'd come back, knowing the location of this place from the encounter with Kida and Shiki was actually ready to kill him for it.

"How did you do that?" Izaya asked, unable to contain his astonishment after all the times he'd arranged for situations that had tested Shizuo's endurance but had never really hurt him severely.

"Explosives. It's strange he's still alive." Shiki shrugged. "He was coming here and demanding to see you. Obviously, he was told we had no idea what he was talking about. But he kept at it and we couldn't have had him barging in here when he felt like it indefinitely." Shiki smiled coldly. "We're serious men here, not children playing around. But it turns out you could have gotten rid of him yourself years ago. It makes me wonder why you didn't."

Shiki looked at Izaya expectantly but there was no answer.

Izaya thought how Shiki, for obvious reasons, didn't know that Izaya had ever slept with Shizuo.

Shiki observed how Izaya seemed quite perturbed and not at all happy seeing the man who had caused his disability perish.

"Maybe you are really a masochist, Orihara-kun, and you enjoyed yourself when he beat you. But like I said, admit it to me and I'll take care of that for you."

Izaya paled.

Shiki turned to leave.

"I'll see you later." It was not a formality. It was a promise.

"Can I borrow a car?" Izaya spoke up at last.

"You're taking him somewhere? Ask the boys for the old Mercedes. Upholstery is ruined in that one anyway." Shiki said, getting into the back of the waiting limousine. "Tell them to help you put him in it, too."

Izaya nodded.

Before Shiki's car drove away he caught the sight of Izaya kicking Shizuo's near dead body.

* * *

Aoba realized he should have known it was going to end like this. The weakness was lodged deep inside him and humiliated him to his core. He would have hated Anri so badly for it except he couldn't even do that with Saika forcing the love for her down his throat.

He realized his gang was done for after a display of weakness like that on his part.

Therefore he picked the crowbar up off the floor, his eyes no longer red and his wits at his own disposal, and handed it to Kida before the Blue Squares members surrounding them realized that was what he had meant to do.

Once armed, Kida took care of the Blue Squares easily, blood splattering onto the concrete floor as the fight went on.

Saki gasped.

Aoba just stood there, watching the remnants of his gang lose their final fight.

Kida incapacitated them all without an injury to himself, his white hoodie splashed with blood but none of it his own. This was how it should have been the previous time, he thought. But at least he didn't fail now.

"Why did you give it to me?" He asked Aoba, extending the crowbar towards him. He suspected it might have been Saika's influence.

"I told them I'd kill you, so after seeing me fail like that they would have turned against me anyway."

Kida threw the crowbar away angrily, realizing he had just been used to solve Aoba's problems.

His fist collided with Aoba's face, the telltale crunch indicating he'd broken something.

"Masaomi, that's enough." Saki protested.

Kida looked at her and stopped as if woken up from a trance. He picked up the contents of his pockets strewn across the floor and cut through her bindings with his knife, setting her free and helping her up to her feet.

Aoba leaned back against a wall, pressing his hand to his injured face.

"Let's go." Saki started steering Kida towards the exit, clutching his hand tightly.

"Kida-senpai…" Aoba spoke up. "Seeing as I can't hurt you even if I want to, I think you can trust me." He offered. "We seem to have common objectives, namely hunting down Orihara Izaya. My gang is destroyed. But I still have the Dollars. Will you let me join the Yellow Scarves?"

Kida stopped walking even though Saki continued tugging at his hand.

"And why would I do that?" He asked over his shoulder.

"Because Mikado-senpai thought I could be useful, obviously, and don't you trust your best friend's judgment, Kida-senpai?" Aoba smiled despite the pain he must have been feeling.

"He has just kidnapped me." Saki protested.

But Kida didn't seem to be paying any attention to her.


	5. Bargaining 1

Kuon and Nozomi are Durarara! SH characters.

* * *

Aoba set the laptop down on the table in the cafe but didn't turn it on. He stared at the black screen, his mind wandering while he was waiting for the other two.

Acting civil around Kida was going to take a fair share of effort after what he'd done to Kururi and after Aoba's own failed attempt at killing him just a few days earlier. He'd also invited another person that was necessary to carry out his plan but they were both late.

It started raining outside. Aoba glanced out of the window and rushed to turn the laptop on, intent on finding something on the Internet to take his mind off that fact.

It didn't work.

It was raining during Kururi's funeral after all, too. Aoba could still smell that rain as if it surrounded him even now.

Izaya was there at the ceremony, so close it was like a mockery, the scapegoat having taken the blame, his family none the wiser that he had actually shot his little sister dead.

Mairu refused to talk to Aoba. Since she wasn't answering her phone since Kururi's death he sent her an email detailing what had happened and how he'd seen Izaya shoot Kururi with his very own eyes. She must have not believed him though, because she went away with Izaya after the funeral and died a few hours later, supposedly having jumped off a skyscraper.

Then he went to another funeral. His mother worried at this point, his friends seemingly dying one after the other. There was some talk of changing schools because what kind of school Raira was. Nonsense he didn't need. Izaya didn't come to Mairu's funeral. It was a peaceful ceremony.

"Hey, you're okay, senpai?" Kuon asked with mild curiosity.

Aoba's facial expression was unlike anything he'd ever seen before and half his face was bruised as if someone had punched him. But as soon as Aoba noticed Kuon it mended itself into a smile in an unbelievably disturbing process.

Kuronuma had always been somewhat creepy, Kuon observed, but ever since his two so-called girlfriends had died he was really reaching new heights.

"Of course I'm okay." Aoba shrugged. "So, how was your first day of high school, Kuon?"

It was already evening but Kuon was still wearing the Raira uniform.

"Okay, I guess. I met a strange guy. Another freshman and coming from Akita so you wouldn't know him. Well, we'll see. Is Kida Masaomi really going to show up here?"

"I hope so." Aoba said, typing something on his laptop.

"He's late, though."

"By the way, that website of yours, Kuon."

"What about it?"

"I don't want to read anything about this meeting on there. Do you understand?"

Kuon nodded, even while he wondered if there was really anything Aoba could threaten him with now that he no longer had a gang.

* * *

"What kind of a car is that?" Shinra was unable to hide his mild astonishment at the sight of the old Mercedes, quite obviously being shot at several times.

Celty retrieved Shizuo's unconscious body from the back seat, shrouding it in shadows so the injuries couldn't be seen out on the street and shielding him from the pouring rain. She carried Shizuo into the building.

"What happened to him?" Shinra asked, coming over to Izaya who stayed in the driver's seat.

"Will he be even stronger when he pulls through? Or will he be weaker?" Izaya asked instead of answering. "Like me?"

"I don't know that." Shinra shook his head. "Not before I examine him and even then I will not know for sure. His body is unusual. Tell me what happened to him, Izaya-kun."

"The yakuza got him with explosives."

"But aren't you close with the yakuza now, Izaya-kun? This is a yakuza car." Shinra pointed out. "Shiki-san told me some time ago he's taking care of you, whatever he means by that."

"I had nothing to do with him getting hurt this time around."

"The last time I saw you two together Shizuo told me he was in love with you." Shinra confessed tentatively. "You brought him here. So maybe you should go upstairs with us?"

"Well, he's never told me that." Izaya commented. "Go on and patch him up now, will you, Shinra?" Izaya closed the door and started the car.

"What are you two doing to yourselves?" Shinra mused, heading inside the building once Izaya drove away.

* * *

"Shiki-san, do you want to beat me up?" Izaya asked, entering Shiki's office after having dropped Shizuo off at Shinra's place.

It was late evening and the rain was still pouring outside. Just like during Kururi's funeral.

"Did you return the car?" Shiki seemingly ignored his question.

"Yes."

"What about Heiwajima?"

"I took him to Kishitani."

"Why?" Shiki seemed genuinely astonished.

"He let me live too after our final fight. I want him to deal with how it feels to be defeated like that." Izaya's voice was malicious but there was something in his eyes Shiki hadn't remembered seeing there ever before.

"Mercy. I would have thought you were more cold-hearted than that, Orihara-kun. It turns out I should have finished him off myself instead of giving him to you." Shiki lit up a cigarette. "And what do you mean beat you up, by the way? Hit you a few times? Beat you to a pulp? Make you into a disabled person? Rape you? Take a look." He retrieved a manila envelope from the drawer of his desk and pushed it towards Izaya. "Because I'm afraid I would have to do all of these things to you to go as far as Heiwajima went with you."

Izaya took the papers with his trembling gloved hands and Shiki couldn't help but wonder if it was the injury sending tremors through them now or something else entirely.

It was a copy of the evaluation form from the hospital where Izaya had been admitted after meeting Shizuo at the Ikebukuro park several months prior, detailing his various injuries.

"Why do you have that?" Izaya asked in a carefully neutral voice once he looked through the papers. "And I realize they have a rape kit but did you go so far as to acquire it from the hospital and compare it to Shizuo's DNA? Otherwise, why do you assume it was him?"

"You're my informant. And you lie to me." Shiki pointed out instead of answering.

Izaya put the papers back on the desk.

"You're a married man yourself. You can't expect me to be faithful to you."

"I would expect you to be sane and honest if we are to cooperate. Though I have known since we first met the first one is too much to expect in your particular case. That leaves us with honesty. But then again, how can you explain something like this? Because I'm seriously intrigued." Shiki put his hand on the papers. "I've shown you he's never been invincible. I gave him to you weak like a baby and you still didn't kill him. It's as if you want this to happen to yourself."

Izaya's hands clenched into fists. He was really trembling way more than usual.

"It may not look so good." Izaya spoke up after a while, motioning to the papers with a move of his head, starting to smile. "But the rape part is a bit far fetched. I agreed for the hospital to hold onto the rape kit in case I needed to frame Shizuo down the line but I wouldn't call it rape at the time it had happened. Shizu-chan is obviously a stupid brute and it's easy for him to go as far as to kill me in his mindless rage, regardless if it objectively makes sense at the time or not, but at least he kisses me sometimes. I've even heard he told our mutual friend he was in love with me. Honestly, I know you will not be romantic with me, Shiki-san. You call me your plaything so play with me, I guess. Play rough, if this is what you want now. I can take it. But after playtime is over, leave me to my own devices and don't pry into my matters because that is none of your concern, just like your family life is for me. Unless you want me to return the favor and turn up at your home."

* * *

"I'm Kotonami Kuon."

"So you're Nozomi's little brother." Kida observed, taking in the boy's green hair and Raira uniform. "Why is that kid here, Kuronuma?"

"How do you know my sister?"

"You didn't know she had once been hanging out with the Yellow Scarves?" Kida asked.

"I guess she just did whatever Izaya-san told her to do." Kuon shrugged.

"I thought he might come in handy." Aoba spoke up. "Him and his and Nozomi's little website."

He turned the laptop around in their direction, IkeNEW! open in the browser.

"Lately everyone reads it to get to know what's going on around here." He proceeded to explain. "Izaya seems so awesome when you read about him there. He came back to the city, went out of hiding, reestablished his business, he can walk after all, the yakuza does what he wants, Heiwajima Shizuo now does what he wants as well and he even single-handedly destroyed Blue Squares on his order. Doesn't Nozomi-san let her imagination run wild?" Aoba sighed. "It's not generally known it's her though. Everyone thinks Izaya writes this stuff himself. But then again maybe he does. She's his pawn after all. Kuon here claims he's never seen him so he doesn't show up at their place in person but maybe they talk on the Internet. Regardless, I think Ikebukuro needs different kind of news. How, for instance, Kida Masaomi beat Izaya up once. That was awhile ago but maybe there are some interesting details that are still relevant. Like what happened to his dominant hand?"

"How do you know that I fought him?" Kida asked.

"Do you think Mikado-senpai would have made me his second-in-command if I was some kind of an idiot, Kida-senpai? Granted, I don't know the details of that fight other that he got injured and that, curiously enough, Heiwajima Shizuo was also there. But I believe you can fill in the details for us."

"I don't get what purpose it would serve." Kida didn't seem enthusiastic at all about this idea.

"Izaya has tons of enemies. He needs that facade to keep him safe." Aoba explained. "If we punch some holes through it, so to speak, and let everyone know he's actually weak then all we need to do is put the Dollars manpower to finding out his location, and we may not have to kill him ourselves at all."

"You don't really like dirtying your hands, do you, Kuronuma-senpai?" Kuon asked with badly concealed glee.

Kida thought how such a plan didn't require him or the Yellow Scarves at all.

Aoba wondered if Kuon was going to play along, motivated by his hatred towards Izaya, or if he was thinking up some agenda of his own already and planning to profit from setting them and Izaya against each other.

"I took away his knife. And his hand was pierced through." Kida spoke up. "I'd rather not discuss why Heiwajima-san was there."

Aoba's brow furrowed. The scars on both sides of his own hand tingled with a faint memory of the pain Mikado had once inflicted on him.

Kida retrieved Izaya's switchblade from his pocket and put it on the table before covering it quickly with a paper napkin.

"Doesn't that make for a good story, Kuon?" Aoba remarked with a satisfied smile disregarding the matter with Shizuo for now. "I think we'll be going to make use of it, Kida-senpai." He collected the knife off the table and hid it in his pocket. "And I hope we can consider ourselves Yellow Scarves now?"

"I don't trust either of you." Kida declared. "But especially him." He motioned towards Kuon.

Aoba smiled, collected his laptop, left some money on the table and took out his phone and typed and sent a short message before heading towards the door. Kuon followed him.

Kida took out his own phone once they were out of sight.

" _I'll cut him, too._ " The message read.

* * *

"What I don't get is why both of you want to kill Izaya-san so badly?" Kuon wondered. "Shouldn't you divulge your reasons to me if I'm supposed to cooperate?"

"Not really. We don't need you prying into our matters." Aoba replied.

"Wha…?"

Sharp pain shot up Kuon's arm from the cut Aoba had unexpectadly landed on him. Both his and Aoba's eyes shone red.

The whispers in Aoba's head weren't pleased with what he'd done but he dismissed them. Anri had given him the cold shoulder anyway after all. Not something she should have done if she wanted him to behave.


	6. Bargaining 2

"And if we're going to show off with what we've found out about each other, I know you have a daughter with that wife of yours, Shiki-san." Izaya said. "And you should also have an idea by now what I can do to little girls. What I made Awakusu Akane do."

Shiki got up from his seat.

"Do you want to beat me up now?" Izaya looked at him challengingly.

There was no answer other than the fury on Shiki's face. Izaya closed his eyes when Shiki's hands squeezed his neck.

"Bring it on, Shiki. Let's play."

It felt good to remove the sentimentality that had been creeping into this relationship. Because it was not needed. It was a promise of something that was never going to happen.

Of outrageous what ifs like Shiki coming to him to Kyoto and staying instead of dragging him back here where he was more convenient, easier to fit into the schedule somewhere between professional and family obligations and less shameful to explain to those who wondered.

* * *

"What happened to you?" Shinra asked when Izaya entered his place, soaking wet from the rain, his lip split and finger-shaped bruises forming on his neck.

His eyes were shining either with impending fever or something else Shinra couldn't put his finger on. Possibly with both.

"Shiki-san took care of me for a bit, I guess." He answered with a smile that didn't reach his eyes.

"What?" Shinra didn't understand what he meant.

"Never mind." Izaya shrugged and took off his wet coat.

Two phones vibrated in the coat's pockets at once. Izaya took them out one by one and looked at one and then the other.

"So, how's Shizu-chan?" He asked after typing a quick response to something.

His phones vibrated again.

"He's woken up, like I told you on the phone. Can you turn these off?" Shinra asked in an exasperated voice.

"And what did he say when he woke up?"

"Nothing much. He wasn't talkative."

"Will he be able to do something to me if I go in there to see him now?" Izaya inquired.

"Would he want to do something to you? Is it your fault he's like that after all?" Shinra wondered. "The answer is no. Not tonight. And give me the knife."

"I don't carry one anymore. And if you're by any chance curious as to when and how I've lost it, go on the Internet and take a look." Izaya sighed. "It's actually been a while but it only made the news tonight. But I'm not sure people will pay any attention to it on the night when the photos of Heiwajima Shizuo on the brink of death have been published."

Shinra pondered what Izaya had said for a moment.

"By whom?" He asked in the end.

"That's a good question, Shinra-kun. How much are you willing to pay for the answer, though?" Izaya laughed before disappearing inside the room where Shizuo was, leaving Shinra outside the door.

He might have laughed but he wasn't happy at all about the hostile takeover of the Ikebukuro news website he had been controlling so far. And on that specific night, too, when he couldn't afford to sit at the computer and try to resolve these problems because there were other matters to attend to. Because Shizuo was like that only now, maybe only for a few more hours, considering what his body could do.

Of course he made some photos of Shizuo in his sorry state. He also kicked him while he had the chance. It felt good. But it was over.

Izaya approached Shizuo's bed.

"You were supposed to be awake, Shizu-chan." He called out to him.

Shizuo was either asleep or unconscious, even while he was propped up on some pillows to a half-sitting position. He was meticulously wrapped in bandages all over besides his face which was somehow undamaged in the explosion.

"Shizu-chan…"

Shizuo's eyes opened, slightly unfocused at first. His hands clenched into fists in his lap at the sight of Izaya and he winced in pain that this slight movement had caused him.

"Do you remember the warning I gave you before I left half a year ago?" Izaya asked. "Apparently, you didn't treat it seriously and look what happened to you. Don't you think it's time you should start listening to me?"

"So you did it to me." Shizuo spoke up softly.

"Yakuza did it. A specific man from the yakuza did it to protect me from you. I didn't ask him for it, though. But he thought it was necessary to get rid of you."

"Then why am I alive?"

"Because you're a monster." Izaya shrugged. "And because I saved your life. Honestly, Shizu-chan, I would have gladly died at your hand in a fight back when we could still have one instead of becoming this pitiful creature I am now. But you decided to spare my life. For the stupid reason of wanting to fuck me. That's why I did the same. And I guess we're even now, though I also hope your recovery won't be so great, if you know what I mean." Izaya observed Shizuo's hands clench into fists again. "You would have gladly hit me now, right? Or maybe fucked me against my will again? But you can't. Remember that feeling, Shizu-chan. Because that is how life feels for me."

"I'm glad you're here." Shizuo declared tentatively after a moment of silence.

"I'm here to revel in your weakness." Izaya was quick to point out. "That makes me so happy that I'm actually foregoing important business just to be here."

"It doesn't matter why you're here, flea. I just wanted to see you again."

"Then look. Though I'm not my best tonight. So, is that nonsense about falling in love with me you told Shinra something you honestly believe in now? You must have missed fucking me all these months, I guess. But wanting to put your dick inside someone while otherwise not caring if he lives or dies is not love, Shizu-chan. It's rather lack of basic human decency. Even if it's a terrible person. Even if that person is heading to Hell for what he did. If you choose to believe you love me, you have to stick by me, even if it means dirtying your own hands, so to speak. Otherwise don't confuse everyone with telling them you do."

"You never asked me for that." Shizuo pointed out.

"What?"

"Sticking by you. Or protecting you."

"And what if I do ask?" Izaya inquired, his eyes wide and serious. "And make it worth your while? How far will you go then, Shizu-chan? Will it be I tell you to jump, you ask how high? Will you kill someone for me? Think about it. Because otherwise I'm not interested. I've already seen how it works out between the two of us when the rules are not laid out and how I end up when such arrangements run their course."

* * *

Saki was sitting at the kitchen table, her hands curled into fists in her lap. She had been there for a long time, waiting, and it was already late at night.

It had been like that for days, with Kida returning home later and later, ever since he had accepted Kuronuma into Yellow Scarves. She pointed out to him how associating with that person had ended for Mikado and how he was like Izaya all over again but Kida wouldn't listen.

She heard the door open in the end.

"Oh hi." Kida greeted her when he entered the apartment. The lights being on inside startled him because Saki usually waited for him in bed, cold and stiff and awake, but he forced a smile onto his face right away. "Why are you still up?" He asked good-naturedly.

"Where have you been, Masaomi?"

"I was working."

"You don't work." She pointed out. "Ever since you stopped working for Tom-san."

"Ok, it was gang stuff. But it was to make money so it was work."

"Yellow Scarves didn't make any money before." She observed.

"Because I was not good at it like Kuronuma and Kotonami. But it's nothing illegal. You don't have to worry."

"I found the gun taped to the back of the cabinet." She said, still sitting at the table and facing away from him.

Kida stopped smiling.

"What did you do with it?" He asked tentatively.

"Nothing. It's still there. Why do you have it, though? Why would you need a gun, Masaomi?"

"You know well enough yourself."

"I appreciate everything you once did for me." She declared. "But all this is too much. Is it true what this website said, too? That Yellow Scarves blew up Heiwajima Shizuo? Are you all insane? Well, it doesn't even matter if it's true. I'm moving out in the morning. And no, I'm not going to Izaya. As I'm sure you'd ask."


	7. Bargaining 3

Aoba entered Sonohara Hall first. Kida hesitated and stayed outside even as the door closed in front of his face.

"Hello." Aoba greeted Anri with a smile, approaching the counter.

"Hello, Aoba-kun." Anri answered hesitantly.

She had not seen him since her graduation. It might have only been a few weeks but it somehow felt longer because of how much her life had changed during that time. Meanwhile Aoba was still wearing the same Raira uniform and the same unwavering smile as before. His face was bruised as if he had been in a fight some time ago. Anri now knew he'd been in a gang all the time she'd known him but she couldn't remember seeing him injured ever before.

"How do I call you now? Anri-senpai? Anri-san? Sonohara-san?" He asked.

She realized how for some reason his words hurt. For all the time he had spent waiting around to be encouraged to call her Anri-chan he didn't mention that now.

"Where's Kida-kun?" She asked before it occurred to her how she made things worse with that kind of question.

"I'll settle on Sonohara-san, then." Aoba said without missing a beat.

Just like that, two years of friendship wiped out.

"Kida-senpai's mustering the courage to face you, I guess." Aoba replied. "He's in a bad shape now, too. His girlfriend left him."

The door finally opened and Kida entered the antique shop.

"Hi, Anri-chan." He said in a neutral voice.

She nodded in acknowledgment.

"Why did you call us, Sonohara-san?" Aoba asked, rubbing the arm that she had once cut.

She went out from behind the counter and walked up to the door to lock it. Kida sidestepped to let her pass.

She turned around and faced them once the door was locked.

"I don't like what you're doing." She said seriously.

"And what are we doing?" Aoba inquired.

"You cut someone, Aoba-kun." She pointed out.

She knew things like that. She could feel the ranks of her children expanding every time it happened. She always regretted it, too.

"Yes." Aoba admitted.

"Why?" She asked. "Did you expect that it would give you control over someone? It doesn't work like that for you. Please don't do that ever again."

Aoba felt the unusual influence her words held over him physically, in the burning pain in the site of his stab wound and in the red mist starting to cloud his vision.

He fought the need to answer 'Yes, mother' tooth and nail in his mind, not wanting the embarrassment in front of Kida and Anri with the way she had been treating him. He regained his wits in the end and breathed a sigh of relief as the redness dissipated from his eyes.

"I only cut Kotonami so he wouldn't be able to hurt Kida-senpai if he turned on us." Aoba spoke up once his own thoughts were allowed to come to the forefront of his mind. "Which is your objective, Sonohara-san. Isn't this the only way this could have been possible? I don't think I can do anything you don't want. Isn't this why I am by Kida-senpai's side now even though *I* hate him so badly?"

Anri blushed even though she knew what Aoba was saying was not really true, not in that way precisely.

Kida gave her a quizzical look.

She thought how things would have been different if only Mikado was still around, realizing how acutely she felt his absence whenever she met Kida after his death. Without Mikado there, she didn't know what to do about Kida at all so she just chose to stay away. But enough was enough and she wasn't going to allow both of them to do whatever until they were as dead as Mikado.

"You're behind Yellow Scarves, right?" She asked, carefully not looking at Kida and not really looking at Aoba either. "There is this website that started describing all kinds of things they do a few days ago."

"Most of this is not true, Sonohara-san." Aoba pointed out.

"Then why it's out there?" She asked.

"Some kids playing around, most likely." Aoba sighed. "It might have been Orihara Izaya's website until recently but now it's not so kind to him either."

"But you really do run a gang." She observed. "Why?"

"We may need the manpower." Kida spoke up. "To kill Izaya. That's all there is to it."

"Yes, pretty much." Aoba agreed. "You know what he did, Sonohara-san." He said, looking at her pointedly.

"I don't see how killing him will undo any of it, though."

"There's no point to such conversations." Kida said impatiently. "You know how many times Saki told me such things? It didn't change my mind anyway. It's for the best if nobody but me and Kuronuma gets involved in this. We really do hate each other so our mutual well-being doesn't concern us. But you should stay away. Just like Saki." He said and headed towards the door.

Aoba's insides clenched painfully when Saika emerged from Anri's hand and her eyes turned red and deadly.

"And I will not just let you cut me, Anri-chan." Kida said over his shoulder. "You will have to fight me." He turned around with a knife in his hand. "Do you honestly want that?"

"Don't start this, Sonohara-san. He's really good." Aoba warned her. "You may lose. And we all know well enough it's not beyond him to hurt a girl."

* * *

Thinking was starting to become tricky but the few thoughts Izaya still had while drifting in and out of consciousness centered around the fact the curse had never encompassed natural death, at least as far as he knew.

The darkness gradually overwhelming his mind as his pneumonia got worse was enjoyable in light of that fact. Hopefully it could have stretched forever and just swallowed him whole soon.

His ability to breathe was reduced at this point to the whizz of the mechanical ventilation. There was a way out at last and the exit seemed to be so close he was already wondering how dying like this was going to feel compared to his previous deaths. Going to Hell scared him but with the way his life had turned out to be it might not have been a bad alternative. It was surely better than risking getting stuck dying, something he truly feared and that was not out of the realm of possibility.

"Why does he just keep getting worse?" Shizuo asked.

He was nearly healed himself. Shinra deduced his physical strength was going to increase compared to before once he was back in peak form but he was not there yet. The scarring was quite extensive but his usual clothes hid all of it. It was like every other injury in his life. Unimportant. It didn't really change anything.

"I think it's because he's been rather frail since he got all these injuries but didn't really take good care of himself." Shinra explained. "It seems he pretty much just ignored a lot of issues he had and went on despite the pain and the further damage he was doing to himself. It's not so strange he became sick or that his body doesn't have much resources left to fight the disease. Also, it seems he's giving up now for whatever reason." Shinra sighed. "Though I can imagine quite a few. That's why he deteriorates so fast. It's probably what he wants. Celty explained certain things to me, too, that she has so far kept secret. You could say he also had some supernatural problems some time ago, if you're willing to believe that. His sisters' deaths actually had something to do with that. I'm not saying this lightly but maybe he's just done. The doctors here say he may not live to see tomorrow with how things are going. His parents are going to be devastated if he dies as well, though. They will come over in a while. So I guess we should leave shortly."

Shizuo put his hands into his pockets so it couldn't be seen how they clenched into fists. It was so very much like Izaya to start dying right when he no longer wanted him dead. And Shinra had a point there that whatever was the true story behind Orihara sisters' death killing Izaya as well wasn't going to make his family any happier.

"Hello, Shiki-san." Shinra greeted the man who had entered the room, some more suspicious looking men who were following him around staying outside.

Shizuo felt himself tense. The guy had some nerve to show up here just like that.

"Shall I introduce…?" Shinra offered.

"There's no need. We know each other already." Shiki said. "Can you two leave me here alone, Kishitani-san? Heiwajima-san?" He asked politely.

The amount of resolve required of Shizuo to stop himself from beating the yakuza to death right there and then in Izaya's hospital room was possibly unlike any he had ever amassed before.

"Well, I'm not sure about that." Shinra hesitated. "Now that I think about it Izaya-kun told me you beat him up, Shiki-san, right before he ended up like this, though I don't understand at all why you would do anything to someone disabled like him, regardless of what was the situation. Hopefully Izaya-kun has not run into some problems with your organization and you're not here to finish him off but..."

"You can stay, then." Shiki decided.

Then he walked up to Izaya's bed, looked at his unconscious face and at the machines keeping him alive, reached out to brush his hair off his forehead and leaned down to kiss it.

Shinra paled. He had heard some rumors about Shiki and Izaya throughout the years but it was not good for anyone that they were suddenly turning out to be true.

"I let you stay here but I hope you understand that this is not to become some kind of public knowledge." Shiki pointed out.

Shizuo's breathing by Shinra's side grew ragged. The fury he was exuding seemed to fill the room like some kind of physical presence, a thick if invisible mist clinging to everything.

Shiki stared at Shizuo with an unreadable expression.

Shinra thought how he had Izaya's type figured out at this point. Dangerous men in elegant clothes, it seemed. He didn't like this situation one bit but in the end who was he to judge anyone's love life.

* * *

"You lied to her." Kida said after he and Kuronuma left Sonohara Hall. "About why you're here, about the website and about me being able to hurt her. I wouldn't have gone all out in a fight against Anri-chan."

"So you would have preferred to actually fight her instead of talking your way out?" Aoba asked incredulously. "She's a friend and a girl and she wields a possessed katana so the rules are skewed in her favor because if she cuts you once, she's already won. If there's a way to avoid fighting her, I'm all for it."

"You lie to me as well." Kida noted.

"Yes, you should assume as much." Aoba agreed with a smile.

"What was the point of meeting her anyway…" Kida wondered. All it amounted to was another fight, just like with Saki, he thought.

"We've learnt she would have most likely not let me hurt Izaya. Therefore I should never approach him in person." Aoba observed. "I presumed as much but she confirmed it for me now. That means I really do need you, Kida-senpai. And that is good news for you."

Kida looked at him and nodded. He didn't plan on trusting him though. If Heiwajima Shizuo, the man known far and wide for hating Izaya, who had already nearly killed him in a fight, could have turned out to have been his lover and showed up to stop Kida from finishing him off, it meant anyone could have been actually on his side.

After all, Kuronuma brought Kotonami into the fold. And Kotonami Nozomi used to be Izaya's follower. And Kida didn't believe in that condition ever fully resolving for its sufferers, not after what he'd been through with Saki.

Who knew what kind of a twisted plan Kuronuma might have come up with to get rid of him despite his inability to actually hurt him, Kida thought. Who knew if it didn't involve working with Izaya. He wouldn't have put it past the little liar.

They went to take care of gang business, with Izaya on their minds and his connections seemingly everywhere around them but his actual condition unknown to them for now.


	8. Bargaining 4

"So, what kind of story is she writing?" Aoba inquired right after entering Kuon's and Nozomi's place, not bothering with any greetings, his hands in his pockets.

He was quite rude, as always when there were no other people from school around.

"How am I supposed to know?" Kuon shrugged. "She'll publish it on the website and then you'll know. Just like everyone else, senpai." He smiled. "No point in you running over here either."

He was sitting at the table, twirling Izaya's switchblade around with its blade retracted. Playing with it had been his favorite pastime these days. Since he hadn't been approached by Izaya back in middle school like his sister or Kuronuma or Kida and hadn't ever seen him, this physical possession of his that he had gotten hold of was the most direct contact he'd ever had with the man who had held so much influence over his life. It captivated him for it.

"You told Nee-chan that if she publishes these stories you needed, Izaya-san would contact her or might finally turn up here in person." He said. "But what actually happened is he's gone silent altogether. Do you even understand what kind of person my sister is? She lived for those messages he sent her, however infrequently, and for the possibility to meet him again. It's no wonder she's upset now."

"Talk to her." Aoba urged him. "It can't look like we're losing control."

"She doesn't talk to anyone right now, though. Not even on the phone."

"Aren't you a bunch of weirdos." Aoba sighed. "What kind of internet access does she have?"

"If you disconnect it here, she'll use the one from her phone. Seriously, Kuronuma-senpai. Sit down and wait."

"You know what might have happened, right?" Aoba asked. "In the best case scenario we've already succeeded and Izaya's dead."

Kuon didn't know what to think. If that were true on the one hand it served Izaya right for what he'd done to Nozomi and for taking her away from him, on the other hand he was going to stay the one who hadn't piqued his interest and never met him forever.

"It might be something else, too." Kuon pointed out. "Some kind of a game. Maybe he's laughing at you right now, Kuronuma-senpai. And all you can do is wait." He said with a smile.

Aoba sat down in the end.

Some time later both their phones played the notification sound simultaneously.

* * *

"Biology club. That brings back memories." Izaya sighed, entering the room at the Raijin Middle School.

He was appropriately middle school age again and seemed tiny to himself. If that was Hell, it made no sense at all.

"Celty?" He asked upon noticing her in the room, sans head, with her helmet in her hands.

While he hadn't known her back then, he realized even all these years ago she must have been indeed looking the same.

"Am I dead?" He asked uncertainly.

"You're close." Celty answered in the Dullahan's voice even though there was no mouth for her to speak out of.

Izaya's blood ran cold, her presence in the afterlife spelling trouble for him after what had previously happened.

Suddenly, the surroundings didn't seem quite so real anymore and Izaya walked up to the window not sure what he was expecting to see but there was nothing out of the ordinary there, just school grounds with some students milling around.

"I don't like you meddling in my affairs again, Dullahan." That warning didn't sound very serious spoken in the voice of a middle schooler. "I don't wish for you to try saving me again. Or using me for anything. I have suffered enough the last time around, don't you think? What is the meaning of this?" He motioned to the room.

"I am not responsible for that." She pointed out. "You are."

"Hopefully it's temporary." He sighed. "I don't look up to spending the rest of eternity in middle school."

"Are you sure? Because it seems this is precisely what you want." She noted. "You can go home, though."

"Home?" He asked dubiously.

He could remember home back then. It had been before he started acting up so the atmosphere there had been peaceful and his twin sisters were preschool age and nothing out of the ordinary. Izaya knew he was in a moment before Shinra's stabbing by Nakura. That was when things went downhill on the family front, so to speak. He took responsibility for the stabbing and was considered bad ever since. Soon after, he stopped going home after classes on most days and wandered around the city late into the night, partaking in more and more crazy pursuits. Then he met Shiki, admittedly being one disturbed kid at that point. Then middle school was over.

"The one upside to this is it's before I met Shizu-chan." He spoke out loud. "Such a precarious moment, too." He observed thoughtfully, thinking back to all the other middle schoolers he confronted around that age later on in his life, derailing their lives. He had never realized before how he had first done that to himself. "So, am I going to Hell, Dullahan?"

"Not if you stay here. Though you will forget the rest of your life. But that is what you yourself want. And granting that wish is my gift to you."

"Middle school, cram school, sleep, repeat. That is one sick idea of a purgatory." Izaya sighed. "Appropriately unexciting. But you're right that I like it, now that I think about it." He admitted with a smile.

* * *

Shizuo looked on grimly as Shiki got into the limousine in front of the hospital. His men got in the other cars before the whole column left.

"This was the guy who injured me, right?" Shizuo asked.

"Probably." Shinra agreed. "That would have made sense. I presume you didn't know about him and Izaya?"

"Did you know, Shinra?"

"No. I would have told you if I knew he was with someone else. I guess they've been keeping it secret. Shiki-san's married, too."

"So what is the flea's point?!" Shizuo growled. "Why would he…"

"Whatever he did, Shizuo-kun, you don't talk ill of someone who's dying." Shinra said. "We should head back to my place. You still need to heal."

Once they were back, Celty met them in the hallway. Shizuo walked away after greeting her briefly.

"His parents are there now." Shinra explained to Celty. "I think they will stay as long as it takes so there was no point in us wandering around there anymore."

"He's dying." She typed on her phone and showed him.

"Are you observing him somehow?" Shinra sounded vaguely astonished. "Is it because of what you told me about meeting him in the afterlife? Because you never liked Izaya much before." He pointed out.

"I don't like him. But I owe him." She showed him another message. "I wouldn't be here anymore if not for him." She added.

"Oh, now I'm starting to really feel bad about him dying considering he saved our love, Celty."

* * *

"Is all of that true, Kuon?" Aoba asked, looking down at his phone.

"Yes." Kuon answered with a sigh. "For once it is. But many people will not believe it since it's on our website. We can't be trusted after all."

Nozomi had published the story. It turned out to be about how Izaya had saved them from their abusive foster parents. It didn't give details that would have let anyone identify him, so Kuon supposed it was all right. It was heartbreaking and well written so it was going to get hits and make money for them.

"I guess you feel grateful to him." Aoba observed, having finished reading, looking to Izaya's knife in Kuon's hands pointedly.

"He still ruined Nee-chan later on. So don't get any ideas, senpai, because I hate him regardless."

"That story sure makes him look good though." Aoba noted thoughtfully. "But it doesn't really have anything to do with what I'm trying to do." He shrugged. "I'll be going. Come talk to me at school tomorrow, Kuon."

Aoba put on his coat and left.

Kuon prepared dinner and put a plate down in front of Nozomi's door before going to sleep so she could emerge at night and eat it.

He was getting ready for school the next day, having overslept for the morning classes, when the strangest thing happened. The door to Nozomi's room opened and she stepped outside, in her state of partial undress that she seemed to have forgotten being somewhat inappropriate.

Kuon forced himself to look down to the floor at her feet.

"Izaya-san called me." She announced. "I can go see him at the hospital."


	9. Bargaining 5

It was hate that had brought Izaya back. A feeling gnawing at his insides even as he was leaving this world, keeping him back like a lead weight, demanding things of him and not letting him go. Dying like that, having made the offer to Shizuo but not having followed through with his plan to corrupt him just didn't feel right. As reassured as he'd been by the Dullahan's offer he figured he could take it some other time. When asked, she had told him it would stand as long as he died a natural death.

And so before his middle school self could forget everything and go on with his pitiful little existence forever in the afterlife, he did what felt like forcing himself to live fueled by hate, his eyes shooting open, the machines he was hooked up to blaring off their alarms and the tracheal tube starting to suffocate him. At least that was what he chose to believe in about his health improving so suddenly. He was already used to getting jerked back to life and the sudden onslaught of pain didn't surprise him at all this time around.

His parents stayed by his side until he was taken off the mechanical ventilation in the wee hours of the morning. He was instructed to breathe mostly through the oxygen mask from then on but allowed to speak a little if he needed to. It took just a few appropriately hurtful words to make them leave.

Later in the morning he called Kotonami Nozomi, gave her his location and asked her to visit him. Then he waited for things to run their course, bedridden and too weak to sit up or breathe on his own but still as dangerous as ever.

* * *

Kida's insides were twisted with hate. It made up the very core of his being. He had never wanted or planned to end up like that but it was how it was.

He had hated Izaya even before Mikado's death, for obvious reasons, but the fear in Mikado's eyes after he'd pulled the trigger and before he'd died had made it so much worse. There had never been any doubt in Kida's mind about Izaya having manipulated Mikado into taking his own life. That was the kind of thing he did. And Mikado had obviously not died willingly, despite the outward appearance of having chosen to kill himself.

Kida's attempts at revenging him followed, as terrible as they had been unsuccessful, until he had nothing left to live for but hate.

This was the day everything might end, he thought, retrieving the gun from the kitchen cabinet. Thankfully Saki had let it be when she'd found it even though he wouldn't have put it past her to try to get rid of it.

"So, you'll go to the hospital and finish him off." Aoba's voice emanated from Kida's phone's loudspeaker. "You will probably be caught, though. And it's likely a trap considering Izaya himself gave this location to Nozomi-san. Though he's actually there for real. I called to check."

"I don't care what happens to me after it's done." Kida declared while removing the pieces of tape from the gun.

"I would have sent Kuon if he were up to it, really, Kida-senpai, but I can't. He's Saika's child just like me."

"You don't get it, Kuronuma. I will be happy to kill him myself."

"Well, I don't care either way as long as he's dead." Aoba remarked casually. "It's fine by me if you get caught, too."

"I know." Kida admitted. "But if that happens, please take care of Anri."

Aoba snorted over the phone.

"I'm afraid she's not interested." He said.

"You'll be the only one left, though. You have to take care of her for me and Mikado." Kida insisted.

"Well, I'll do my best, Kida-senpai. And good luck, I guess."

* * *

"Look at us, Shizu-chan. I didn't get to enjoy you being worse off than me for long." Izaya said before putting the oxygen mask back on.

Shizuo looked fine already. No problems moving around, no trembling, no visible scars. Izaya wondered exasperatedly if it was of any use hurting him at all. And in that moment on the stairs of the Awakusu-kai headquarters, had it been really worth it to let him live?

"Me and Shinra..." Shizuo spoke up. "...We thought you were going to die last night, flea."

"I'm sorry for disappointing you then." Izaya replied cheerfully after taking the mask off again.

"I don't want you to die." Shizuo confessed.

Izaya smiled.

'We'll see about that, Shizu-chan.' He thought to himself, breathing through the mask. 'Sooner than you may expect.'

"You had visitors last night." Shizuo said after a while, though maybe that was something he shouldn't mention at that moment.

"Yes, my parents."

"That yakuza boss came here."

"Shiki-san? I guess Shinra must have let him know. I have been working for him for years. It's heartwarming he showed up. Though I presume you don't like him."

"He kissed you, flea." Shizuo pointed out, his body tensing at the memory.

Izaya started coughing and put on the mask to take several breaths.

"I guess you shouldn't talk so much." Shizuo relented. "I shouldn't bother you."

He headed towards the door.

"Shiki-san was ready to kill you to protect me." Izaya spoke up before he could leave. "You, the strongest man around. And when you didn't die, he let me decide what to do with you. Even if he didn't agree with my choice. Those are the kinds of things you never did for me."

He had to put the mask on at this point but took it back off right away.

"Shizu-chan, stay with me for a bit longer, will you?" He asked before Shizuo could leave. "We'll talk later."

Shizuo hesitated but came back in the end, sat down on the chair by Izaya's bedside and sat there staring at the wall gloomily.

Izaya closed his eyes and seemed to have fallen asleep, breathing through the mask.

Then the door opened and Kida entered the room, retrieved a gun out of his pocket and started shooting right away.

* * *

Kuon sat down at the table at his place with Aoba to discuss things.

"Me and Nee-chan, we went to the hospital, too." He said.

Aoba noted how Izaya's knife Kuon had been constantly playing with before was nowhere to be seen.

"I thought whatever might happen, I wanted to see it with my own eyes, maybe get some photos for the website, too." Kuon continued. "And Nozomi left her room to go, so you realize how important it was for her. And look." He said before showing his phone to Aoba.

In a video, a man in a bartender suit jumped out of a third floor window of the hospital, dragging another person behind him. He disappeared from view among the parked cars and the video ended.

"Then we found him, you know." Kuon said. "Kida-senpai's dead. Do you want to see the photos?"


	10. Bargaining 6

A/N: Thanks for the reviews.

* * *

It was not like Kida hadn't expected things to end like this. Having been stopped by Shizuo once from finishing Izaya off, he had since assumed he might face him again. He just hoped it could be after Izaya was already dead. No such luck though.

Shizuo was bleeding from seven wounds in his arm and side where he had taken the bullets for Izaya but the rage propelled him forward anyway as always.

He had grabbed Kida, used his body to shatter the glass and left the hospital room through the third floor window, his injuries from the explosion radiating with pain when he landed on the ground with Kida in his grasp, not fully healed yet despite the outward appearance.

Once down in the parking lot he threw Kida to the ground, having grabbed the gun out of his hand first.

"I won't stop, Heiwajima-san. Not for as long as I'm alive." Kida declared, picking himself up, bleeding onto the ground from where the breaking glass had injured him.

Shizuo smashed the gun in his palm.

"How did you know where to find Izaya?" He asked, suspecting what the answer might be and dreading it all the same.

"He called a girl I know that he once ensnared and gave her his location." Kida answered.

Shizuo looked down to his bleeding arm and side. Izaya had apparently arranged for this to happen. He was testing his loyalty, Shizuo realized, going so far as to risk his own life to do that.

Shizuo was aware why Izaya might have thought it was necessary after what he'd done the last time around but he didn't like where it was going one bit.

His eyes landed on Kida. The fact that he had shown up at a hospital with a gun to murder a bedridden man wasn't admirable either.

There were so many reasons to be angry. Kida having shot him, Izaya manipulating him, that guy from the yakuza, everything generally going to shit and he let that rage guide him when he picked Kida up off the ground.

"Think whom you're siding with, Heiwajima-san." Kida said softly, looking him in the eye.

It was too late for thinking though. This was the result of not thinking clearly for years. And madness was not something anyone could just walk away from.

* * *

"I need to go see Izaya-san." Nozomi insisted even as Kuon dragged her across the parking lot to the place where Heiwajima Shizuo seemed to have landed when he'd jumped out of the window.

"I need to see what's happened there, Nee-chan."

Kuon continued dragging her, refraining from pointing out how seeing Izaya was probably no longer possible, what with the police cars arriving in front of the hospital.

Shizuo was no longer around when they reached the place, Kida's body lying there in a puddle of blood with wide open unseeing eyes.

"It's Kida-kun, isn't it?" Nozomi asked right away upon spotting it, even though she had not seen Kida in four years.

"Don't come any closer." Kuon stopped her. "It will be a crime scene once they find him."

He snapped some photos with his phone from where they were standing.

"We should get help." She said.

"It would just land us in trouble. It's too late for him either way. Let's get out of here."

They went back to the front of the hospital but the policemen there didn't let them inside.

The sight of Kida's dead body stayed etched behind Kuon's eyelids but he was never going to admit that to anyone. The gruesome photos in his phone were nothing more than stuff to put on the Internet. At least that was what he was trying to convince himself of.

Once stopped in her journey to see Izaya, Nozomi started deteriorating instantly. She slid to the ground against the wall of the hospital and hugged her knees, whispering something to herself.

"Nee-chan." Kuon kneeled down by her side. "Call Izaya-san."

"You think I can call him?" She asked as if that would have been some kind of a transgression.

"He told you to come here, didn't he?" Kuon reasoned. "So you can call him. Put it on loudspeaker."

Someone did pick up the phone when she called Izaya's number.

"Izaya-san?" Nozomi asked hesitantly.

"Yes? I'm afraid you can't come visit me at this time." The voice sounded quite cheerful and alive. "There was a shooting at the hospital. I think I will move elsewhere now to recuperate in peace. So, see you some other time, Nozomi-chan. Who's with you by the way?"

"My brother." She answered right away.

"Hello, Kuon-kun."

"Hello, Izaya-san. It's nice to finally talk to you, even if it's only on the phone." Kuon answered without missing a beat.

"Likewise. Say hi to Kuronuma-kun for me."

"Of course."

"See you two around."

With that, Izaya ended the call.

Nozomi hugged her phone to her chest as if it had become treasured by virtue of Izaya talking to them on it before slipping back into her near-catatonic state, unable to process so much happenings all at once after months of isolation.

Kuon called a taxi and escorted Nozomi back to their apartment and to her room, wondering exasperatedly when she might next emerge once he closed the door behind her.

Then Aoba came over.

"So Heiwajima killed Kida-senpai." He reasoned after looking at the photos of Kida's body on Kuon's phone, thinking how it served him right for what he had done to Kururi and not letting himself think anything else. "So it's true Heiwajima's on Orihara's side now. I wasn't sure before if these were just rumors or how much truth there was to it. Kida knew something but refused to talk about it. But this proves it without a doubt."

"Do we let the police know that he did it?" Kuon asked.

"Of course. Just like we let everyone else on the Internet know. We just don't mention Izaya. That might actually solve the problem with Heiwajima, so take care of it now, Kuon. I need to go." Aoba said before standing up. "There's a gang without a leader around."

"You taking over the Yellow Scarves would be a bit too much though, don't you think, senpai?"

"We'll see about that." Aoba declared before leaving.

Kuon noted how Aoba hadn't smiled even once since he'd heard about Kida's death.

* * *

Kine smoked after having dug out the hole. He wasn't so young anymore as for this kind of thing to be effortless for him, he thought, looking around the remote area of the forest he had driven to.

Smoking was not going to help with the shortness of his breath but at least it calmed his nerves.

Once he was through two cigarettes he hid the butts, put on plastic gloves, walked up to the car, opened the trunk and retrieved the body, dragging it out holding it under its shoulders.

It should have been a two-man job but summoned on such short notice, he was forced to do it all alone.

He moved the body towards the hole in the ground and pushed it down there, only realizing that its eyes were still open once it had fallen on its back. He had meant to close them but had forgotten about it and it was too late for that now.

He reached for the shovel with a sigh and started burying it. Then he smoked again.

'It's done.' He sent a message to Izaya before getting back in the car and driving away.


	11. Depression 1

Spreading his legs for that monster again, willingly, or at least making it not feel forced in exchange for certain services, was quite awful, Izaya thought. It also had to be done.

Shizuo's love for him had a definite physical component to it and it was not cuddles and supporting him when he had trouble walking, rather it was fucking the daylights out of him no matter if he could take it or not.

His body treacherously was all for it, at least to a point, and he was hard when Shizuo stripped him. They were both recovering at Shinra's, Izaya from his sickness after leaving the hospital once it'd become swarmed with police after the shooting, Shizuo from his seven bullet wounds and his earlier injuries, so it was Shinra's place, but he was aware of their relationship so he should be all right with possible noises and eventual stains, if not with Izaya getting fucked in his current condition.

"I'll be gentle." Shizuo promised, pressing kisses down Izaya's chest.

Kida was dead. Kida was really dead, Izaya thought. That was what he was planning to think all the way through. Kine had confirmed it for him. Of course Shizuo had been careless, just like back when he'd killed him, and there was still cleanup to be done. At least he brought the gun back with him. On the other hand Kotonami Kuon sent Izaya the videos he'd recorded on the scene and waited for his decision before making them public. Maybe letting everyone know wasn't such a bad option, too. Maybe that was just what Shizuo deserved, maybe now more than ever.

Izaya winced when Shizuo's lips wrapped around his erection. That was supposed to feel good but he could not lose himself even in a sensation like this.

There was still Kuronuma to deal with, he thought, but Kuronuma and him could possibly coexist despite the mutual hate, as they had always been in fact, if only he stroke a deal with him again, like the one for either of them to get rid of Kida first chance they got that they had had the past few months behind Kida's back.

He could get rid of Shizuo, there was no reason not to, he decided. Either put him in prison for murder or maybe even kill him. Shiki had already nearly succeeded at that, after all. He could be made to try again, Izaya was sure of that.

It was not exactly that Shiki loved him but Izaya suspected that deep down he was consumed by guilt and probably thought that if the two of them were lovers for life then fucking him back when he'd been sixteen would have been justified. Shiki was big on honor like that. His loyalty, once one had it, was a force to be reckoned with.

It was fine thinking about him right now, too. Better than concentrating on what was actually going on. Too bad Shizuo broke the illusion by climbing back up his body and kissing him on the mouth.

Izaya's breath whizzed in his throat. The lips on his felt neutral. He could catalog the sensations but it was doing nothing for him. Shizuo possibly enjoyed himself though. Izaya wrapped his arms around him obligingly.

With a sinking feeling in his stomach, he thought how he should have gotten rid of Shizuo before this could happen. Feeling his fingers inside scared Izaya of what was going to happen. He hadn't predicted this could have been that bad, not after all the times it had already taken place. It should have been easy by now.

Maybe he should have just died back when he had the chance, Izaya thought, panic at what was next gripping him. Shizuo's hands might have been blood-drenched now, just like he'd wanted them to be for a long time, but it didn't make his touch any less awful.

"Shizu-chan." That nickname sure turned out to be a mockery, mostly of himself. "I don't want that." He whispered.

In that moment, on top of Izaya's body that was pliable, excited and ready for him,Shizuo realized there were more tests for him to pass, maybe an endless amount of these.

Izaya went to sleep when he let him go, his breathing evening out in the bed next to his.

* * *

"Why are you already out and about?" Shiki asked in a neutral voice, any concern he might have been feeling well masked. He crushed a half-smoked cigarette in the ashtray though, out of consideration for Izaya's lungs.

"I have things to do." Izaya answered.

Shiki noted how he was looking even worse than before. He was so thin he was barely there and his face was devoid of color, even his eyes dull and almost brown.

"Like coming here uninvited? I won't bother you with work when you're like that. If you need money, just give me a call. And if you miss me, I can come to you. We've been through that back when you were in Kyoto."

"I have since threatened your family." Izaya pointed out.

"And I have beaten you up for it. You have also nearly died. Let's stay out of each other's business. I'll respect that for now."

"I've heard you kissed me, Shiki-san." Izaya said, looking at him expectantly.

"Just this once. You're like Sleeping Beauty. One kiss and you're back to life." The corner of Shiki's mouth curled up in a small smile.

"Too bad there's no happily ever after then." Izaya replied seriously.

"So why are you here, exactly?"

"If you can't offer me anything more, I just want a mindless fuck."

"Go eat something first. Then find a bed and go to sleep. Or I'll be visiting you on your deathbed again way sooner than you may like."

"Shizuo fucks me as is."

"Because he's an inconsiderate beast. And no, he doesn't, at least not the way you need it, or you wouldn't be here."

"Right, Shiki, only you know the way I need it. After so many years…"

Izaya walked up to him and slid into his lap, his legs straddling him on both sides. He was just a pile of bones under Shiki's hands when he reached for him, trembling gloved hands splayed on his chest and a wheezing breath mingled with his.

Maybe he really wanted respite. More likely though he was playing some sick game.

"I meant it, Orihara. Go home and rest."

* * *

Kuon was walking through the hospital, receiving strange looks from the personnel and patients because of his style, searching for Aoba's room.

He wore quite a cheerful expression on his face. He thought how it was funny that Aoba had got beaten up by the Yellow Scarves when he'd gone to take them over.

"Hi, Kuon." Aoba greeted him from his hospital bed once he'd entered his room.

Strangely, he was looking fine. There were no visible injuries on him at all and he was sitting up reading something on his phone.

"They got you pretty badly, senpai." Kuon said with a hint of a malicious smile. "I told you Yellow Scarves weren't meant for you. How long have you been unconscious exactly?"

"Eight days." Aoba replied. "And about that, there are still no news of Heiwajima having murdered Kida online."

"Yes, there are none." Kuon admitted, getting serious. "Izaya-san called me. He threatened he'll make Nee-chan commit suicide if I publish these videos or show them to anyone and that's a real possibility."

"I'm sorry to hear that. But there's just one problem, Kuon." Aoba observed. "How did he know you had any videos in the first place?"

Kuon smiled again.

"Ok, I told him myself." He admitted. "And while we were talking, he let me know you had an agreement with him, too. So don't act all holier than thou, senpai. Anyway, who's the leader of the Yellow Scarves now?"

"Yatabe. Your sister's ex boyfriend."

"Does that make you wonder if he's Izaya's pawn, too?" Kuon asked with a smile. He was quite amazed by the breadth of Izaya's influence at this point. "Then again, maybe he's not. Since you're still alive, senpai."


	12. Depression 2

"Where did he go?" Shizuo asked, itching for a cigarette to calm himself down with. "Is he well enough to go anywhere?"

While Shinra had received a message from Izaya detailing where he'd gone he wasn't convinced he should divulge that information to Shizuo.

"Well, he didn't ask me if he could go. But if he insists I guess he can go home. Wandering around is a whole different matter but he apparently sneaked out of here while everyone was asleep so…" Shinra shrugged.

Shizuo thought how he should have stopped him, considering he was sleeping in the same room. Izaya was just gone in the morning and Shizuo wondered if he was going to be back at all and what might await him after he'd murdered someone if he was really gone. But whatever did was justified either way.

Celty entered the room and approached Shizuo with her smartphone.

"I'm worried about you." She typed and showed him.

"Don't be, Celty."

Then the doorbell rang. Shizuo headed to the door right away.

"Where were you, flea?" He asked right after opening the door for Izaya.

"Apparently, I had something to do." Izaya answered indifferently. "Work. And I sent Shinra a message. Anyway, I've been here long enough. I'm going back home today."

"What message?" Shizuo addressed Shinra who was looking on from the doorway.

"That he went to see Shiki-san." Shinra answered with a sigh. "I wasn't sure if I was meant to tell you that."

"We need to talk, flea." Shizuo said to Izaya, his brow furrowing.

"But of course we do, Shizu-chan. Let's go for a walk."

"You can barely walk." Shizuo pointed out.

"And whose fault is that?" Izaya asked. "Anyway, this is the kind of thing couples do, Shizu-chan. Though I imagine you got the wrong idea from the previous time we were together. And you'll carry me if I need it, right?"

Celty walked up to Izaya and typed something on her smartphone.

"Maybe you should consider stopping to pester Shizuo." She showed him the message.

Izaya smiled.

"It's too late, Celty. He's already quite committed. But that's what he wanted anyway. And shall I remind you why I'm even still around? Take responsibility for your own actions, will you?" He looked at Celty and then at Shizuo. "Though I guess blaming me for everything is very convenient for everyone."

* * *

Anri looked up from reading a book when the door to her shop opened. She knew who it was. She could feel his approach through their connection but she had no idea what he might have wanted. She put the book down and got up to stand behind the counter.

"Hello, Sonohara-san." Aoba greeted her when he entered the shop.

"Hello." She answered, looking at him closely as he approached.

He was limping slightly but otherwise appeared to be fine.

"I've heard from the nurses you'd visited me at the hospital." Aoba said.

Anri blushed faintly, having counted on him not getting to know at all since he'd been still unconscious at the time.

"I felt it when you got hurt." She explained. "I thought it was the right thing to do to see how you were."

"Thank you, Sonohara-san."

"You're welcome."

"You're not going to ask me why I got beaten up like that? Or do you assume I'm the kind of no good person something like this is supposed to happen to? But I came here to tell you something else. Kida-senpai's dead."

Anri's gaze left his face and travelled down to the counter in front of her but she didn't say anything.

"You can say: I told you so, I guess." Aoba offered. "He went to kill Izaya and got killed. Officially he's missing so the police most likely doesn't have his body but someone I know has been around at the time and has seen him dead. He's never coming back, Sonohara-san. I just figured you should know." He turned around as if he meant to leave.

"Are you done now, Aoba-kun?" Anri spoke up, still staring down at the counter.

"Done with what?" He asked over his shoulder.

"With trying to get revenge." She finally looked up at him. "After what happened to you and Kida-kun."

"Me getting beaten up didn't have anything to do with Izaya. And I don't care about Kida." He declared, turning back to face her. He didn't say out loud how he'd counted on Kida's death making him feel better and how this didn't work out like that at all. "It doesn't change anything for me."

"So you're going to try again?" She asked to make sure.

"That has nothing to do with you either, Sonohara-san."

"I can make you stop."

"You don't care about me. So spare yourself the effort."

"I have no one else left to care about now."

Her eyes turned red.

And Aoba stood frozen to the spot as Saika's influence took over his mind, his own eyes becoming red as well. The intrusion felt atrocious and he gripped his head in a futile attempt to stop it but there was nothing to fight back with. Saika had already invaded much of his mind back when he'd been in a coma and while it had been lying dormant ever since, Anri was determined to use its full influence now. Still, Saika faltered before taking over all of his mind, recoiling in disgust from the darkness in his soul with a whisper of _hate hate hate_.

Anri didn't stop though, ignoring Saika's protest. She forced the spiritual presence to go all the way in this time around. She unearthed the memory of Izaya shooting Kururi in a situation she couldn't begin to understand and Aoba's theories about Izaya causing Mairu's suicide. She found his brother in there and Aoba's own blood on the floor of his family home and pain and fire. Saika's hate for him mingled with his own hate for everyone, including her. And then it was done.

She slumped down onto the chair behind her, feeling momentarily dizzy, and her eyes went back to brown.

Aoba let go of his head, straightened up and kept looking at her with empty red eyes. Then he took out his phone and called Izaya's number.

* * *

Izaya sat down on a park bench and started drinking the unsweetened iced coffee that he'd got on the way there through a straw. His gloved hands were trembling but that didn't seem to bother him at all.

"So, Shizu-chan. What did you want to talk about?" He asked with a smile. "Wait. I have something to tell you first. I'm having fun. This moment will be over when we start talking so I wanted you to know. Though I can see how you're just uncomfortable."

Izaya insisted on walking down the street holding hands and while he might have enjoyed the curious glances, Shizuo didn't like that one bit. It was a miracle nobody got hurt on their way to the park and Shizuo was grateful for this being far from his usual places and him at least not having the bartender uniform on, so possibly not getting recognized by anyone.

"And one thing I have to admit is you're quite good-looking." Izaya continued. "Even the scars look great. I took a look yesterday. I'm sorry I didn't let you fuck me, too. I'll try harder the next time around. So? What did you want to talk about?" He asked expectantly, sipping his coffee.

Shizuo didn't speak up.

"You wanted to ask me about Shiki, right?" Izaya said himself. "I've been sleeping with him since I was eighteen. He's a smart guy, too. He's married though, both to his wife and to his organization, I guess. That's why there's only so much he can do for me. Though it turns out he's capable of killing someone for me. He even tried to kill a monster like you. So you realize he would have arranged Kida's death as well if I wanted it. But it would have been nowhere near as monumental for him as it was for you, Shizu-chan. I've seen him kill people, years ago, and he's quite blase about the whole thing. He couldn't even understand my own apprehension of doing something like that. And that's to be expected, he's a yakuza after all." He shrugged. "But you, Shizu-chan, someone who was trying so hard to be an upstanding citizen despite my numerous attempts to show everyone how you were nothing but, finally killing someone for me, is incredible, and maybe even worth all my suffering." He wondered. "But it's also not enough. Shiki can be old news if you're willing to do what he can do for me. And more. But it's up to you."

"What do you mean?"

"If I'm in danger, you'll fight off the assailant. Kill him if necessary. You will live with me, so you're around when I need you. And if I have any idea that I think is worth pursuing, you'll go along with it. You know what that means? You'll have to quit your job."

"I already quit."

"Well, that's unexpected. I thought you liked it a lot."

"I also killed my kouhai. And almost caused the death of the previous one."

"You will have to leave Ikebukuro altogether." Izaya continued. "And that's only for now. I think I'll be leaving Tokyo again soon. I'll let you visit your brother, though. So? If you think it's all worth it, I must have been a damn good lay."

"You're just trying to be cruel, Izaya."

"Maybe. But can't the same be said about what you were trying to do when you nearly killed me? Or kicked me when I was down on the ground? Or looked on while Kida stabbed me?"

Shizuo didn't answer. He was as clueless about his own feelings as always, Izaya thought.

He figured it was jealousy more than anything else that had propelled Shizuo to approach him again and go on to kill Kida and even made him behave around him, but he himself didn't know that and didn't realize he hadn't really cared until he figured out Shiki was apparently fucking what he assumed was his to mistreat in any way he'd ever wanted. The fool thought it was love. Izaya sure didn't believe that but whatever it was he enjoyed the control it gave him over Shizuo immensely either way. He could possibly live the rest of his life just enjoying it and leading Shizuo down ever darker paths before revealing everything years later when he was truly the only person left in Shizuo's life. Revenge was a powerful force after all. And he could feel the lust for it coursing through his veins.

His phone rang.

Kuronuma. Izaya scowled, not happy about his gleeful mood getting spoiled.

"It's been awhile, Kuronuma-kun." He said into the phone after picking up. "I've heard your senpai went missing, too. I'm really sorry..."

"I will no longer pursue you, Orihara-san." Kuronuma declared, interrupting him.

"How come?"

"I don't want to end up like Ryuugamine-senpai and Kida-senpai. I wish to cut ties with you."

Obviously something weird had happened to him, Izaya thought, racking his brain for the possible reason.

"I don't believe you, Kuronuma-kun." He said. "You're not known to be particularly trustworthy, you know."

"Mother won't let me approach you anymore, though."

Izaya smiled when he understood what was going on.

"So, Anri-senpai wants to save you that badly?" He asked. "Well enough, if she can really keep you contained."

"Mother can do that easily."

"That's great, Kuronuma-kun. You ending up like that is almost better than seeing you actually die." Izaya laughed. "I accept it. Let's stay away from each other's business from now on. And I wish you and your Mother happiness. You don't have to thank me." He hung up after that and continued to laugh.

"Who was that?" Shizuo asked anxiously.

"A boy who might have been my sister's boyfriend if she were still alive." Izaya explained after he got a hold of himself. "Alas, he ended up being someone else's mindless pawn." He said, looking Shizuo in the eye. "Let's head back." He extended his hand that Shizuo took a hold of with clenched teeth and muscles twitching in protest.

But he did.

"Oh, and do we have a deal?" Izaya asked.

"We do, flea."

The resulting smile on Izaya's face had a certain kind of disturbing beauty to it.


	13. Acceptance 1

"Have you read the article I sent you?" Izaya asked.

He was on his way to Kuon's and Nozomi's place with Shizuo, leaning on him as they were walking, more so than necessary. Shizuo was as tense as ever, unnerved by the glances from the other people on the street that the two of them were getting. Izaya enjoyed his uneasiness, to an extent.

"The one about you saving orphan siblings from their foster parents?" Shizuo asked, sounding as if this kind of thing couldn't possibly be true. "The website it's on is no good." He shook his head.

"It doesn't mean it's not true that I saved them, Shizu-chan. Do you know that the same website published photos of you nearly dead? Real ones."

"I know that. But I don't know how that could happen…"

Izaya overlooked that Shizuo's glance.

"So what did you think about the article?" He asked instead.

"That you probably still messed these kids up somewhere down the line."

"Oh, but it was written by Nozomi-chan herself. She adores me. Her brother does, too. To a degree." Izaya said with a smile.

"That doesn't mean you haven't messed them up. Actually, it probably means that you did."

"Would it have been better for them to be abused for years, I wonder? Until they could get away as adults? If these lovely foster parents of theirs didn't just murder them long before that, of course."

"You didn't do this out of the goodness of your heart, flea."

"And what do you know about that?" Izaya rolled his eyes. "Anyway, even if I am utterly evil, as you apparently believe, it's still the result that matters. And the fact is, I saved them. Just like it's a fact that Masaomi is dead. And that brings us to the other thing. These kids are good at what they do. They not only had photos of you beaten up. They also have a video showing you getting out through the hospital window with Masaomi in your grasp. And the photos of his dead body. That's why we're paying them a visit, actually."

"To do what?" Shizuo asked, his arm tensing even more under Izaya's hand.

"That depends on how much you want to stay out of prison, Shizu-chan." Izaya's smile widened. "I don't know what they're planning, obviously. I can't read minds. It's good Kuronuma's most likely taken care of. But still, anything can happen."

"Izaya." Shizuo said.

"Yes?"

"Don't ever involve yourself with any kids again."

"That's a lot to ask from me, actually." Izaya sighed. "But I guess I'll try, from now on. It's time for me to retire anyway. Hide somewhere and wait for a peaceful death instead of putting myself out there and risking being killed by someone." Izaya thought about the possible dreadful consequences of that briefly but didn't let that train of thoughts continue. "There's just one problem, Shizu-chan. Obviously, I need money to continue living in my condition, and once I can no longer take any from Shiki and with you forbidding me to do my job, what am I supposed to do?"

"So these kids were your job?"

"Actually, part of it, yes. Put me in a place that's peaceful enough and I'll go out of business. That's one of the reasons why it's not beyond me to stir things up. So?"

"That's bullshit, Izaya." Shizuo growled. "But I will take care of you."

"Ah, thanks, except it won't be free, either, right?"

"Hello." Kuon welcomed them with a smile when he opened the door, his eyes widening when he spotted Shizuo. Then he moved his gaze to Izaya, stared at him for some time, and finally smiled wider, with a hint of aloofness, as if he decided there was nothing much to see in the end.

Izaya smiled back at him, deeming his style: the green hair, the piercings, the pink shirt, ridiculous. That opinion might have been just him getting old though, he conceded.

He walked inside the apartment and into the living room, not waiting for Kuon to actually invite him in.

Nozomi was sitting on the couch with an open laptop on the coffee table in front of her, way more grown up than Izaya remembered her. She was obviously uncomfortable in the ugly long-sleeved black dress she was wearing.

"Nice dress." Izaya still said.

Nozomi blushed and averted her gaze.

"Kuon helped me pick it out." She said.

His objective apparently being transforming his sister into a shapeless blob, Izaya thought, possibly because he was suspecting that Izaya's attention in her could become somewhat unprofessional down the line, which wasn't the case of course. It was endearing how, for all the effort Kuon had apparently been making to be like him, which was something Nozomi had been simply informing him about over the years, he actually knew so little about him.

"It's lovely." Izaya added for good measure.

Nozomi blushed harder.

Kuon sat down on the couch next to her and glared at Izaya.

"You're here for business, Izaya-san, not small talk." He said, doing his best to hide his irritation. "But first, I have something of yours." He took a switchblade out of his pocket and put it down on the table.

Izaya recognized it as one of his own instantly. The one Kida that had taken from him after their fight. He sat down and took it into his hand. It was unmistakable. He remembered the feel of it in his hand and the scratches on its handle all too well.

Ikenew had published photos of it, too, he recalled, so it wasn't far-fetched at all for Kuon to have it. Apparently Kida, Kuronuma and him really had had that alliance aiming to take him down going. That hadn't worked out all that well for them, Izaya thought. Kida was dead, Kuronuma had been subdued by a monster, which at least to Izaya, seemed to be a fate worse than death, only Kuon was left, still at it despite everything, even though Izaya had actually wronged him the least. It wasn't out of the question that he was just doing it for entertainment.

"I don't need it." Izaya pushed the switchblade back towards him, doing his best to control the tremors in his gloved hand that were obvious evidence that he no longer had any use for a knife. "Shizu-chan's enough." He added, making it sound like a threat.

Shizuo was a looming presence, standing right behind him. A subdued beast, finally doing his bidding. Better than any switchblade indeed. Izaya smiled.

"Bringing him here was unnecessary." Kuon said. "I couldn't do anything to you even if I wanted to. You don't know that Saika stabbed me, too? She'd stop me."

Izaya didn't know that. But it was also not important anyway.

"And yes, I've seen what he can do." Kuon added. "But also what can be done to him. Yakuza are some scary people, aren't they, Izaya-san?" He asked with a smile.

"Quite conveniently, they're also doing what I want." Izaya smiled as well.

"Humility isn't your strong suit, is it, Izaya-san?" Kuon sighed.

"Izaya-san is a special person." Nozomi spoke up. "I told you so many times."

Kuon scowled at her for taking Izaya's side like that.

"He's old and broken. Isn't it high time someone replaced him?" Kuon asked, smiling again. "He saunters in here all cool and special, but it is us who have the means to prove that he murdered someone."

"I haven't murdered anyone." Izaya said calmly, in case they had the idea to record was being said. "But I know what you mean. I'll pay you for that video you have. As much as you want."

"Taking you down may be priceless, though." Kuon said, his smile turning malicious. "But I suppose…" He took the switchblade from the table and opened and closed it a few times with an ease that was proof enough of a lot of practice. Then he hid it in his pocket. "It's just a matter of how much. Having you pay me, Izaya-san, sounds enticing enough. But there's one other thing I need you to do: disappear from here."

Izaya felt Shizuo's presence behind him grow ever more threatening.

"And never come back this time around." Kuon continued. "Leave my sister alone for good, too."

"Your sister would have offered to erase that video you have for me for free." Izaya pointed out, turning to smile at Nozomi. "Don't push your luck, Kuon."

"That's why I made my own copies ages ago, Izaya-san." Kuon said.

"There's no guarantee he won't release this video anyway." Izaya observed once him and Shizuo were out of Kuon's and Nozomi's place. "There will never be. I planned to leave this place anyway but, considering that, we have to go abroad."

Shizuo nodded thoughtfully.

"I'll pay him to buy us some more time for now." Izaya said. "But you should be saying your goodbyes."

"There won't be a way to come back." Shizuo observed.

"You killed someone, Shizu-chan. Doing something like that carries some consequences, you know?" Izaya shrugged. "I'm looking forward to what he will do, actually. He's fifteen. I'm jealous, so many possibilities. Though after his time at the top he may actually end up like me, Ryuugamine or Kuronuma. It may not be worth it then."

"How will you pay that kid?" Shizuo changed the subject.

Izaya had told him already how he no longer had much money. Shizuo's concern was warranted, he supposed.

"While saying imy/i goodbyes, I'll arrange it." He said with another shrug.

Kuon wanted a lot of money, of course, but Izaya supposed not more than what he was worth. It should be enough to appear broken in just the right places to make Shiki give it to him.

"Cheer up, Shizu-chan." He said. "It'll be his last time with me. And I'll be all yours after that."

"Like you were the last time we tried?" Shizuo asked, growing apprehensive over the mention of Shiki.

"I already told you: I'll do my best. Besides, you can just…" Izaya swallowed, the words somehow refusing to escape his mouth. "It's not like you haven't done that before."

"But you will go to him willingly."

"But I will leave with you. And I'll go to him only to bail you out. That's actually dedication, isn't it?"

Shizuo didn't seem convinced at all.

"I appreciate what you did for me, Shizu-chan. And I will do this for you."

* * *

That had been a lie of course, because Izaya didn't really have to force himself to go to Shiki. Even after what had happened after he'd threatened his family, that still held a certain allure.

He got the money issue out of the way first.

"I'm leaving." He said after having explained the situation.

Shiki took a drag from his cigarette.

A terrarium with a strange lizard was on the desk in front of him and it was staring at Izaya with unblinking eyes. Izaya knocked on the glass. The lizard cowered in apparent fear.

"Don't disturb my merchandise." Shiki said."Will Heiwajima go with you?"

Izaya looked up at him.

"I need someone in my current condition, Shiki-san." He said. "I can't get by on my own when I'm like that. And you will not leave this place with me."

"Of course not." Shiki shrugged. "Being with someone isn't about stealing their life away from them, Orihara-kun."

"It isn't about keeping someone around as a glorified pet either." Izaya stood up and took off his gloves. "But that's unimportant now. Whatever we did wrong, it will be over soon either way."

"What does Heiwajima think about you coming here again? And what are you thinking?" Shiki asked when Izaya gripped the edge of his shirt. "I threw you out the last time around."

"If you're going to pay me, let me earn it." Izaya threw his shirt to the floor and started unbuttoning his pants. "I didn't tell Shizu-chan I was going to you right now. He might have stopped me when push came to shove. I said I went to see my parents first."

"And that is probably what you should be doing."

"I don't enjoy seeing them, though. All they're talking about are my little sisters. And that reminds me of what happened to them. On that note, what did you tell your wife when I asked you to come here?"

"How come this is the first time you're asking, Orihara? She knows about you, actually. In vague terms, at least."

"And you just tell her you're off to see me?" Izaya bent down and removed his shoes, scowling in pain.

"I just told her I had something to do at the office."

"Having a mistress is common in your circles, right?" Izaya asked, taking off his underwear. "I suppose she has no choice but to accept it. Will you be getting a new one once I'm gone?"

"That shouldn't concern you." Shiki snubbed his cigarette out. "But if that makes you feel more special, I won't pick up another crazy fifteen year old who will force himself on me at sixteen, that's for sure. I'm much too old for that myself. And smarter than I was, I suppose."

"That's good to hear." Izaya smiled and walked up to Shiki to slide into his lap. Shiki let him, this time around, which Izaya was thankful for because he didn't plan to beg. "I do get jealous, you know. Even your wife sometimes…"

"Don't."

"But I want you to know, Shiki-san. When I first met you, I just wanted to use you. And even when I came back to you at eighteen, that was all I wanted still. But then…"

"There is no need to lie to me at this point, Orihara."

"But there were times when I loved you for real." Izaya started unbuttoning Shiki's pants. His fingers were not really working all that well but he did his best. "I was just too arrogant to tell you. I suppose it won't hurt at this point, though." He lowered himself onto Shiki's erection, having come prepared, of course. It still felt good. "Before you got married, I thought at times we could have moved in together." He said."You know, my fur lined coats on one side of the closet, your white suits on the other. You would have introduced me to your fellow yakuza as your bitch and I would have laughed at the joke, even if it was on me." He started moving slowly. "I was still a naive kid back then in the end. You getting married taught me a lot, actually. I was apparently not the only person around playing around with other human beings' feelings with no regard for their well-being. I sometimes thought about murdering your wife, you know, slitting her throat and waiting for you to find her dead in your bed. Putting a bullet into your kid's head for good measure, too."

"You wouldn't have done that, Izaya."

"I appreciate you using my name for once. Do you want me to return the favor?"

"Don't."

"You think I wouldn't have done it because I can't kill? Or because I'm supposed to love your family as much as you anyway since you're all my beloved human being? Because I can't ever get to play favorites? I might have had some kind of enlightenment sooner. Just like things changed now. With both my sisters dead, pretty much because of me. With that fucking monster by my side… But I guess, you would have killed me if I did that. And it was not worth it to throw my own life away like that, more than anything."

"You shouldn't go anywhere with Heiwajima, Izaya." Shiki said after they were done and Izaya emerged from the bathroom next to his office, fully clothes.

"Funny you still remember that I have a first name after all." Izaya laughed. "And as for leaving with Shizu-chan, it's not like staying here with you would be much better for me. At least I have the upper hand with him. I can destroy him any day."

"Not quickly enough to stop him from snapping your neck first."

"I suppose not." Izaya shrugged. "I just hope if that were to happen, I will be able to die right away. But in my current condition, that may be too much to ask. Isn't that just so sad?"

"Here." Shiki pushed the stacks of banknotes in a bag towards Izaya. He must have taken them out of the safe while Izaya had been in the bathroom.

Izaya took the bag.

"Good luck." Shiki said.

"Goodbye, Shiki-san."


	14. Acceptance 2

When the red fog finally cleared from Aoba's field of vision, Izaya was no longer in the city.

Because it had been weeks.

Aoba had been apparently going to school every morning and coming back home to his mother every night during that time, going through the motions of his days as usual, circling Anri's shop aimlessly for hours whenever he had nothing to do, waiting for her to give him further orders. She'd never given him any. She'd just been keeping him sedated like that.

Kuon wasn't returning his calls anymore after that time and always found some excuse not to talk to him at school. The discussions on the Dollars boards had been going their own way for weeks and Aoba, being as out of the loop as he was, didn't feel like engaging with them again when there was no purpose to it all anymore.

He went to Anri's shop after school and walked through its door for the first time since she'd subjugated him like that.

"Are you proud of yourself?" He asked her right away.

She was standing behind the counter, staring at its top.

"I don't regret what I did." She said after a while of silence. "What I regret is that I didn't cut Masaomi, too."

"Izaya ran away because of you. You caused Kida's death to be in vain."

"I talked to Celty-san, Aoba-kun." Anri looked up. "She told me that because of some things she'd done when she had been a Dullahan, Izaya's in an unnatural situation now. If he's killed, he gets to relive the moment of his death until he finds a way to survive. It's nearly impossible to kill him."

"And you believed that?"

"I have a cursed sword inside of my own body. And Celty-san is my friend. I did believe her."

"Well, if that's true…" Aoba shrugged. "I still hope he gets to suffer for what he did to his sisters. Hopefully, someone somewhere will get him and slaughter him, repeatedly if need be. Too bad it won't be me."

"It won't." Anri agreed.

"If you're going to be like that, we might as well make the most out of it, Anri-chan."

Anri didn't seem surprised that he'd called her that all of a sudden.

Maybe because it was not entirely his own idea, he thought. The uncertainty about that was going to be constantly there from now on and it was going to be insufferable. But he was still unable to stop himself from speaking the next words.

"After I finish school in the spring, let's get married, Anri-chan."

* * *

Izaya didn't enjoy his new surroundings, mostly because he'd made a conscious decision not to explore them in depth. There was nothing left for him to do like that, other than waiting around for the right time to make his final move.

He had been thinking about Kuronuma at times, about how he'd been subdued by a monster who did as it pleased with him. He had conquered his monster himself. Even if it didn't feel that way when he had to let it kiss him, with the possibility of more still floating in the air.

Once they'd settled down properly and Shizuo had found a job, bringing in pitiful amounts of money that would have never been enough anyway in the long run, Izaya started executing his plan. It took months because every step hurt and every day was one too many to get through and also because he wanted to wait but the years he'd once planned would have been too much. He drudged along somehow, went out to meet some people he'd heard about when Shizuo wasn't home and for once arranged for him to be dealt with properly.

He'd tried so many times before, renting trucks to run Shizuo over, arranging for heavy machinery to fall on him, preparing explosions for him to die in, not to mention all the times he'd personally wounded him with his knife. To no avail. Maybe because he was never serious about ending things like that. Shiki had gotten pretty close, because he had no such qualms, but at that time, it had been too soon to let Shizuo die. Now, the right time was drawing near.

The hanami season started again and everything was ready.

"I appreciate what you did for me, Shizu-chan," Izaya said on the night before with a smile.

Shizuo seemed quite unsettled by him bringing that up.

"I hope it was worth it," Izaya continued.

He knew Shizuo actually had doubts and suffered for it. That was the point of using him to kill Kida in the first place, that and getting even for the time he had not helped him.

On that night Izaya let Shizuo have his way with him to deal with how upset he'd become, and it seemed like they reached some kind of a twisted balance in what they'd done to each other.

"Let's go watch cherry blossoms tomorrow," Izaya offered.

Shizuo didn't answer him, already asleep, which was just as well, Izaya thought, because he didn't really mean it.

The explosion that killed Shizuo on his way to work the next day wrecked several buildings and destroyed a dozen cars. There were no other victims but him.

* * *

"Have you heard, Kuronuma-senpai?"

"Heard what?" Aoba said into the phone.

He had been putting on his cufflinks before Kuon had called and didn't really appreciate the interruption at this particular moment even though it was the first time Kuon contacted him in months.

"That yakuza executive for whom Orihara Izaya worked before he left, Shiki." Kuon said. He sounded very amused. "He has just had his wife and kid murdered last night."

"Kuon, I don't have time for this," Aoba said, taking a deep breath and looking himself over in the mirror. "Not inow/i."

"I'm pretty sure Izaya was behind that. What's more important than that?"

"I'm getting married." Aoba saw his eyes turn red briefly in the mirror.

"Ah, right, I forgot about that." Aoba bet Kuon hadn't forgotten. "Good luck then. I'll call you later." Kuon ended the call with that.

And somehow what he'd said evaporated from Aoba's memory right away and the next day, when he looked at his call history, he couldn't remember why Kuon had called him at all.

"It's all right," Anri whispered to him.

It was not all right though and Aoba clutched his head as if he could crawl the parasite that had invaded his mind out like that.

* * *

Having tied up the loose ends, Izaya left again. Shiki should have been smart enough not to look for him, but who knew if witnessing the aftermath of what Izaya had arranged to happen to his family wasn't going to make him lose his edge.

All that was left to do was wait for death. But first he went to see the cherry blossoms, on his own. They reminded him of Mikado and of a lot of different things. But that was fine at this point and he actually enjoyed their beauty.

* * *

END


End file.
